System and method for channel occupancy time (cot) sharing for in an unlicensed spectrum

ABSTRACT

Some embodiments of this disclosure include systems, apparatuses, methods, and computer-readable media for a shared channel occupancy time (COT) procedure in a wireless channel of unlicensed spectrum. The shared COT can be utilized among one or more user equipment (UE) and a 5G Node B (gNB). A UE contends for access to the channel to acquire the COT, and transmits in the uplink (UL) according to the UEs time-domain configuration. When the UL transmission does not utilize the entire COT, the UE can signal to the gNB that the COT can be shared. In particular, the UE transmits an indication of a COT boundary that the gNB can use to determine when to transmit DL data in the shared COT. The COT can also be shared between two or more UEs in addition to the gNB.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.62/806,199, filed Feb. 15, 2019, which is hereby incorporated byreference in its entirety.

FIELD

Various embodiments generally may relate to the field of wirelesscommunications.

SUMMARY

Some embodiments of this disclosure include systems, apparatuses,methods, and computer-readable media for use in a wireless network for ashared channel occupancy time (COT) procedure in a wireless channel ofan unlicensed spectrum.

Some embodiments are directed to a user equipment (UE) that includes aradio front end circuitry and processor circuitry coupled to the radiofront end circuitry. Some embodiments include the processor circuitrycontending for access to a channel in an unlicensed spectrum, acquiringa shared channel occupancy time (COT), transmitting data in the sharedCOT using the radio front end circuitry, and transmitting an indicationof a COT sharing boundary using the radio front end circuitry. The COTsharing boundary can indicate to a 5G Node B (gNB) that the shared COTis available and the point at which the gNB can perform a listen beforetalk (LBT) before acquiring the shared COT.

In some embodiments, the shared COT includes multiple uplink (UL)downlink (DL) switching points, and the processor circuitry transmits,using the radio front end circuitry an allowed length of a portion ofthe shared COT that a 5G Node B (gNB) can utilize, or an indication ofan UL DL switching pattern. In some embodiments, the processor circuitryreceives, using the radio front end circuitry, a length of atransmission within the allowed length from the gNB, determines that agap between the allowed length and the length of the transmission isless than threshold, and transmits, using the radio front end circuitry,additional data in the shared COT, without performing a LBT.

In some embodiments, the processor circuitry receives configurationinformation including a maximum number of UL-DL and DL-UL switchingpoints, or a duration allowed for a downlink transmission in the sharedCOT. The configuration information can be received in a radio resourceconfiguration (RRC) signal or a downlink control information (DCI)signal. In some embodiments two or more UEs (including the UE thatacquired the shared COT) can utilize the shared COT. After transmittingthe data, the processor circuitry monitors the channel for a downlinkcontrol information (DCI) signal, and receives the DCI signal thatincludes a first set of Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)occasions of a common search space (CSS), where the CSS informs two ormore UEs of a structure of downlink (DL) transmissions. The structure ofDL transmissions includes a slot format of the gNB transmissions on theshared COT. The DCI signal can include a slot pattern for downlink (DL)and uplink (UL) transmissions based on the indication of the COT sharingboundary and a second indication of a COT sharing boundary of a secondUE of the two or more UEs. The DCI signal can also include slot formatinformation (SFI).

In some embodiments the indication comprises N bits, and thetransmission is via an uplink control information (UCI) signal. In someembodiments the N bits identify a slot offset, X, from an initial slotto the COT sharing boundary, and the processor circuitry transmits theslot offset, X, in each subsequent slot by a countdown until the COTsharing boundary is reached. The processor circuitry can transmit, usingthe radio front end circuitry, a start and length indicator value (SLIV)of the final slot via the UCI signal that indicates the COT sharingboundary.

Some embodiments are directed to a gNB that includes a radio front endcircuitry and processor circuitry coupled to the radio front endcircuitry. In some embodiments, the gNB receives an indication of a COTsharing boundary from a first UE, performs a listen before talk (LBT)after the COT sharing boundary is received, and based on the LBT,transmits data in the shared COT, where the shared COT occurs in achannel of an unlicensed spectrum. The gNB can receive a secondindication of a second COT sharing boundary from a second UE, and basedon the first and second indications, determine a slot pattern fordownlink (DL) and uplink (UL) transmissions. To inform the first andsecond UEs that share the shared COT of the slot pattern, the gNB cantransmit a first set of Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)occasions of a common search space (CSS). The shared COT can includemultiple uplink (UL) downlink (DL) switching points, and the gNB canreceive a first slot pattern from the first UE and a second slot patternfrom the second UE, where the first and second slot patterns aredifferent. The gNB can choose one of the slot patterns to transmit thedata in the shared COT. When the shared COT comprises multiple uplink(UL) downlink (DL) switching points, the gNB can receive an allowedlength of a portion of the shared COT that the gNB can utilize totransmit data on the shared COT.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS/FIGURES

FIG. 1 depicts an example of a user equipment (UE) channel occupancytime (COT) sharing procedure using 3-bit Uplink Control Information(UCI) offset indication, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2 depicts two UEs indicating COT sharing in different occasions,and a 5G Node B (gNB) selects the first common occasion, in accordancewith some embodiments.

FIG. 3 depicts two UEs sharing the COT with the same timing, inaccordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 4 depicts COTs shared with a gNB and two UEs, in accordance withsome embodiments.

FIG. 5 depicts an architecture of a system of a network, in accordancewith some embodiments.

FIG. 6 depicts an example of infrastructure equipment, in accordancewith some embodiments.

FIG. 7 depicts example components of a computer platform, in accordancewith various embodiments.

FIG. 8 depicts example components of baseband circuitry and radiofrequency circuitry, in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 9 is an illustration of various protocol functions that may be usedfor various protocol stacks, in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 10 depicts a block diagram illustrating components able to readinstructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g.,a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium) and perform any one ormore of the methodologies discussed herein, in accordance with variousembodiments.

FIG. 11 depicts an example method for practicing the various embodimentsdiscussed herein, for example, the operation of a UE for COT sharing inan unlicensed spectrum.

FIG. 12 depicts an example method for practicing the various embodimentsdiscussed herein, for example, the operation of a gNB for COT sharing inan unlicensed spectrum.

FIG. 13 depicts another example system architecture according to variousembodiments.

FIG. 14 depicts another example system architecture according to variousembodiments.

The features and advantages of the embodiments will become more apparentfrom the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunctionwith the drawings, in which like reference characters identifycorresponding elements throughout. In the drawings, like referencenumbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/orstructurally similar elements. The drawing in which an element firstappears is indicated by the leftmost digit(s) in the correspondingreference number.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following detailed description refers to the accompanying drawings.The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identifythe same or similar elements. In the following description, for purposesof explanation and not limitation, specific details are set forth suchas particular structures, architectures, interfaces, techniques, etc. inorder to provide a thorough understanding of the various aspects ofvarious embodiments. However, it will be apparent to those skilled inthe art having the benefit of the present disclosure that the variousaspects of the various embodiments may be practiced in other examplesthat depart from these specific details. In certain instances,descriptions of well-known devices, circuits, and methods are omitted soas not to obscure the description of the various embodiments withunnecessary detail. For the purposes of the present document, the phrase“A or B” means (A), (B), or (A and B).

Each year, the number of mobile devices connected to wireless networkssignificantly increases. In order to keep up with the demand in mobiledata traffic, necessary changes have to be made to system requirementsto be able to meet these demands. Three critical areas that need to beenhanced in order to deliver this increase in traffic are largerbandwidth, lower latency, and higher data rates.

One of the major limiting factors in wireless innovation is theavailability of spectrum. To mitigate this, the unlicensed spectrum hasbeen an area of interest to expand the availability of LTE. “In thiscontext, one of the major enhancements for long term evolution (LTE) in3GPP Release 13 has been to enable its operation in the unlicensedspectrum via Licensed-Assisted Access (LAA), which expands the systembandwidth by utilizing the flexible carrier aggregation (CA) frameworkintroduced by the LTE-Advanced system.

Now that the main building blocks for the framework of NR have beenestablished, a natural enhancement is to allow this to also operate onunlicensed spectrum, namely NR-U. The work to introduceshared/unlicensed spectrum in 5G NR has already been kicked off, and anew work item on “NR-Based Access to Unlicensed Spectrum” was approvedin recent TSG RAN Meeting. Among others, one objective of this new WI isas follows:

-   -   Physical layer aspects including [RAN1]:        -   Frame structure including single and multiple DL to UL and            UL to DL switching points within a shared COT with            associated identified LBT requirements (TR Section            7.2.1.3.1).        -   UL data channel including extension of PUSCH to support            PRB-based frequency block-interlaced transmission; support            of multiple PUSCH(s) starting positions in one or multiple            slot(s) depending on the LBT outcome with the understanding            that the ending position is indicated by the UL grant;            design not requiring the UE to change a granted TBS for a            PUSCH transmission depending on the LBT outcome. The            necessary PUSCH enhancements based on CP-OFDM. Applicability            of sub-PRB frequency block-interlaced transmission for 60            kHz to be decided by RANI1.    -   Physical layer procedure(s) including [RAN1, RAN2]:        -   For LBE, channel access mechanism in line with agreements            from the NR-U study item (TR 38.889, Section 7.2.1.3.1).            Specification work to be performed by RAN1.        -   HARQ operation: NR HARQ feedback mechanisms are the baseline            for NR-U operation with extensions in line with agreements            during the study phase (NR-U TR section 7.2.1.3.3),            including immediate transmission of HARQ AN for the            corresponding data in the same shared COT as well as            transmission of HARQ A/N in a subsequent COT. Potentially            support mechanisms to provide multiple and/or supplemental            time and/or frequency domain transmission opportunities.            (RAN1)        -   Scheduling multiple TTIs for PUSCH in-line with agreements            from the study phase (TR 38.889, Section 7.2.1.3.3). (RAN1)        -   Configured Grant operation: NR Type-1 and Type-2 configured            grant mechanisms are the baseline for NR-U operation with            modifications in line with agreements during the study phase            (NR-U TR section 7.2.1.3.4). (RAN1)        -   Data multiplexing aspects (for both UL and DL) considering            LBT and channel access priorities. (RAN1/RAN2)

One of the challenges of NR-U is that this system must maintain faircoexistence with other incumbent technologies, and in order to do sodepending on the particular band in which it might operate someregulatory restrictions might be taken into account when designing thissystem. For instance, if operating in the 5 GHz band, a listen beforetalk (LBT) procedure needs to be performed in some parts of the world toacquire the medium before a transmission can occur.

One of the fundamental operations for configured grants in NR-U is theUE-acquired COT sharing operation, where the UE acquires a COT, and uponcompleting its PUSCH transmissions can share the COT with the gNB. InLAA, this procedure was restricted to a COT sharing offset X configuredby higher layers, and the UE would indicate the COT sharing using asingle bit in a subframe n, such that the COT sharing boundary occurs atthe beginning of subframe n+X. The UE must blank the final symbol in thelast subframe of PUSCH transmission in order to allow for the gNB toperform CCA. If the gNB acquires the COT upon successful LBT, it mayonly transmit PDCCH of up to 2 symbols, containing only HARQ feedbackand scheduling information for the UE which initiated the COT.

For the NR-based unlicensed operation of configured grants (CG), a morerobust approach is required. Given different numerologies and slotformats, the CG UE must be able to indicate to the gNB exactly where theending symbol of the final PUSCH transmission occurs, and thus the COTsharing boundary. This becomes critically important given that the NRunlicensed operation allows for COT sharing with different categorylevels for LBT, thus allowing the gNB to simplify the contention portionof the COT sharing procedure if the gNB can reduce the UL-to-DL gapsufficiently. Thus the NR-U configured grant COT sharing indication mustbe robust enough to allow UEs and gNBs to take advantage of theflexibility and functionality of NR operation.

The development of the baseline structures and procedures for COTsharing with CG UEs using the NR configured grant resources in theunlicensed spectrum are established.

When operating on unlicensed spectrum, the CG UE must contend for accessto the channel in order to acquire a channel occupancy time (COT). Inthis case, the CG UE will transmit in the uplink according to itstime-domain configuration. However, since it is possible that the CG UEis not configured to transmit in the uplink during the entire length ofthe maximum channel occupancy time (MCOT), the CG UE can indicate to thegNB a COT sharing point that coincides with the slots for which the UE'stime-domain allocation configuration indicates uplink transmission isnot configured. Nevertheless, additional signaling to the gNB in theuplink control information (UCI) is necessary in order for the gNB toknow in exactly which slot and symbol that the CG UE is sharing of theCOT. The mechanics and associated signaling of the UE-initiated COTsharing procedures are therefore designed and provided herein.

COT Sharing Indication Design

The following embodiments describe the COT sharing operation of a singleUE, and this UE may be allocated full or partial BW.

When a CG UE initiates a COT using CAT-4 LBT, it will do so on a slotthat is allocated to the CG UE for UL transmission by higher layers. TheCG UE will also know how many consecutive slots it is allocated for ULtransmission by higher layers, and thus will transmit a PUSCH burst thatis no longer in length than the consecutive slots. The UCI will betransmitted along the PUSCH, and will contain information regarding thenumber of slots remaining until the COT sharing boundary. Thus, from thesignaling in the UCI, the gNB will know exactly which slot contains thelast PUSCH transmission, and thus know when the COT sharing boundaryoccurs.

In one solution, the UE's GC-UCI contains a N-bit field for COT sharingoffset indication of X slots, e.g. N=3, where the offset is indicated ineach slot that contains UCI, and indicates the number of slots remainingfor PUSCH transmissions until the COT sharing boundary. For example, themaximum slot offset that can be indicated is 2^(N)−1, and the minimumnumber of slots indicated is 1. The bit indication ‘000’ indicates thatCOT sharing is disabled during the current slot. For the initialindication of COT sharing during an UL burst, the minimum offset is 2slots in order to allow the gNB sufficient processing time to prepareits DL transmissions. The following table outlines the offsets and theirassociated bit indications.

TABLE 1 COT sharing slot offset and associated bit indication in UCISlot Offset X Bit indication 1 001 2 010 3 011 4 100 s 101 6 110 7 111Disabled 000

The UE will use the slot offset to indicate the remaining slots forPUSCH transmissions using the table above. In the subsequent slots afterthe initial COT sharing indication, the UE will indicate the remainingnumber of slots using Table 1 until the final slot containing PUSCHtransmissions. In the final slot of the PUSCH transmissions, the UE willindicate offset ‘001.’ In the final slot of the final subframe for theUE PUSCH transmission burst, the UE will use the start length indicatorvalue (SLIV) configuration to determine the length of the last slot, andindicate this in the UCI of the final slot using the UCI indication. ThegNB will know the exact COT sharing boundary by knowing the final symbolin the final slot, thus allowing the gNB to know exactly when it canbegin clear channel asscessment (CCA) to acquire the COT from the UE.FIG. 1 illustrates this behavior with initial slot 102, intervening slot104, final slot (before sharing boundary) 106, and COT sharing boundary108.

It is assumed that the X consecutive slots are allocated to the UE forUL transmissions via the higher layer configuration. Once the COTsharing boundary is reached, the gNB can immediately begin performingCCA in order to obtain the COT from the UE, and decide whether totransmit to the UE that initiated the COT, or not. Since the gNB alsoknows the SLIV configuration for the UE, it will know the remaininglength of the final slot, and can thus prepare a mini-slot DLtransmission if sufficient symbols are available in the slot.

In another solution, the CG UE can indicate the COT sharing offset valueonce, using the UCI format indicated by Table 1. The offset value X isindicated in slot n, such that the gNB will know that in slot n+X−1, thefinal PUSCH transmission will occur as illustrated in FIG. 1. Thus, thegNB will know the slot containing the COT sharing boundary, and thusdetermine the earliest occasion to acquire the COT from the UE. However,the UE will not signal any COT sharing offset indication value in anyother slot, as the gNB can already determine the slot containing the COTsharing boundary using the information given. Thus, the COT sharingindication field in all other subframes is set to ‘000.’

In another embodiment, the CG UE can set a slot offset indication to thegNB using the parameter X, which will indicate to the gNB when the UEwill monitor the slots for PDCCH containing deep flow inspection (DFI)

for the current transmission. The UE will indicate in the slot n anoffset X, for example using the indication in Table 1 or any othersignaling method, which will inform the gNB that the UE will search forthe DFI pertaining to slot n in slot n+X.

In some embodiments, the UE's CG-UCI contains a 1-bit field for COTsharing, where “1” means that in X slots from this signaling the gNBwould be allowed to transmit in the shared COT, while “0” means that COTis not shared. In some embodiments, this bit-field can be interpreted inthe reverted manner: “1” for no COT sharing, and “0” to indicate COTsharing starting from X slots from the indication of this bit in theUCI. In some embodiments, X can be RRC configured or it can be fixed.

In the final slot of the UE PUSCH transmission burst, the UE will usethe SLIV configuration to determine the length of the last slot, andindicate this in the UCI of the final slot using the UCI indication. ThegNB will know the exact COT sharing boundary by knowing the final symbolin the final slot, thus allowing the gNB to know exactly when it canbegin CCA to acquire the COT from the UE. FIG. 1 illustrates thisbehavior.

In some embodiments, multiple UL-DL switching points are allowed withinthe UE's acquired COT. In this scenario, a UE indicates in UCIinformation related to the start of the COT that can be used by gNB.This can be done either through one bit-field, as in the embodimentabove, or using an N-bit indication with an interpretation similar toTable I. In some embodiments, the length of each portion of the sharedCOT used by the gNB is at least Y OFDM symbols long: for example Y canbe 2 or 3.

In some embodiments, the number of shared symbols depends on thesubcarrier spacing, and may scale linearly with it. In some embodiments,considering that in 11ax the duration of a UL burst within a DL sharedCOT is limited to 584 us, then Y is limited to up to 0.5 ms (8 OFDM for15 KHz, 16 ODFM for 30 KHz, and 32 OFDM for 60 KHz).

In some embodiments, gNB provides indication within one of the DCIsabout the length of its transmission within the portion of the sharedCOT, so that the UE know when it can acquire the channels/or starttransmitting again without performing LBT if the gap betweentransmissions is less than a settable threshold value, e.g. 16 us.

In some embodiments, the UE can be configured with a maximum number ofUL-DL and DL-UL total switching points in its CG configuration, as wellas duration allowed for each DL transmission in the COT shared by theUE. The duration of each DL transmission can, for example, be specifiedin number of slots, and this duration can come from a predefined set ofdurations, or a UL/DL pattern (e.g. at slot granularity). If theduration comes from a predefined set of values, the value configured forthe UE may be set via RRC configuration, or specified in the activationDCI, or randomly selected by the UE.

gNB's Acquired COT Sharing with CG UE

In some embodiments, a CG UE is allowed to perform a transmission withinthe gNB's acquired COT in the UL and/or flexible (F) time-domainresources indicated by gNB into the shared COT, but only if the COT isacquired using the largest priority class value, or for any priorityclass values.

In some embodiments, in the newly defined DCI formats for eithersingle-TTI scheduling or multi-TTI scheduling, and/or in the DFI oractivation/deactivation DCI, one bit-field is included to indicatewhether COT sharing with CG UEs is enabled or not.

If the gNB indicated sharing with CG UEs is allowed, a CG UE may senddata corresponding to any priority class during in the UL and/or Ftime-domain resources indicated by gNB during the shared COT.

In some embodiments, only contiguous transmissions without a gap betweenUL transmissions are allowed by the UE within the UL and/or Ftime-domain resources indicated by gNB during the shared COT.

In some embodiments, if there is no PDSCH transmission in the COT, thenCG transmission within a gNB's shared COT is not allowed.

In some embodiments, all transmission belonging to the UL resourcesindicated by gNB during the shared COT are counted towards the gNB'sCOT, irrespectively on whether the resources are used for actual ULtransmission or gap.

In another embodiment, the gap is actually not counted toward the gNB'sCOT.

In some embodiments, the gap between DL and UL can be F symbols, andsome of F symbols can be used by the UE to perform LBT. If the gap isless than 25 us, CAT-2 LBT is performed by the CG UE, otherwise CAT-4LBT is used.

In another embodiment, the gap between DL and UL can be F symbols, andthe UE performs LBT right before the gap, so that UL transmission canstart at the boundary of the UL time-domain resources indicated by gNBduring the shared COT. In this case either CAT-4 or CAT-2 LBT is used.

In another embodiment, a CG UE performs CAT-2 LBT, at the boundary ofthe shared UL available resources.

In some embodiments, the CG UE transmission within a gNB's shared COTdoes not extend over the length of the acquired COT.

UE-Initiated COT Sharing Indication Design

For a set of frequency multiplexed (FDMed) UEs that simultaneouslyacquire a COT, such that the UEs are configured via higher layers totransmit in the current slot n, they may possess different number ofconsecutive configured slots for PUSCH transmissions. Furthermore, theUEs may have different number of PUSCH transmissions to make. Thus theUEs will in general end their PUSCH transmissions during differentslots. For time multiplexed (TDMed) UEs, the UEs may share their COT tothe gNB in the same or different slots. In order to enable the COTsharing operation using multiple simultaneous UEs, the procedure for theUEs may follow a procedure similar to the case of the single UE, suchthat the UEs will indicate their COT sharing boundary in the same manneras if they alone initiated the COT. However, once their COT sharingboundary arrives, the UEs will begin to immediately monitor the channelfor downlink transmissions from the gNB. The gNB could receive all ofthe uplink transmissions until the latest COT sharing boundary isreached, at which time the gNB is free to acquire the COT.

In some embodiments, in order for the gNB to inform the set of UEs ofthe structure of the downlink transmissions, the UEs are configured witha common CORESET search space (CSS). This can be observed in FIG. 2,where the UEs (UE 202 and UE 204) have different uplink burst lengths,and one UE 202 begins monitoring the channel for DCI upon end of itsconfigured grant transmission. After the second UE 204 ends itsconfigured grant transmission, the gNB can acquire the COT and send DCIto the UEs in the first set of PDCCH occasions of CSS. The set could beconfigured to contain one or multiple PDCCH occasions. In anotherembodiment, as shown in FIG. 3, two UEs (UE 302 and UE 304) sharing theCOT have the same timing.

In another embodiment, the UEs are configured with UE specific SS (USS),and the gNB will select the first set of common PDCCH occasions of USSbetween the UEs to transmit the DCI. The set could be configured tocontain one or multiple PDCCH occasions. The UEs will monitor thechannel up until the common point is reached.

In another embodiment, to share a UE-acquired COT to gNB, a search spaceis configured in the configuration signaling of configured grant basedPUSCH. Further, CORESET used by this search space can also be configuredin the configuration signaling of configured grant based PUSCH. In otherwords, the search space and/or CORESET is separately configured fromother CORESET and search spaces configured for DL/UL scheduling. Theconfigured search space could carry information on the slot format ofthe shared gNB transmissions. The configured search space could also beused to schedule DL transmissions as well as UL transmissions. Inaddition to the configured search space, a UE could also monitor othersearch spaces configured for DL/UL scheduling.

In some embodiments, multiple UEs performing CG PUSCH transmission byCAT-4 may share their COT with the gNB. The remaining duration of theCOT of different UEs after subtracting period of transmitted CG PUSCHcould be different. The indicated shared COT from different UEs may befully overlapped or partial overlapped. From the gNB side, afterreceiving the COT sharing information from multiple UEs, the gNB maycoordinate the shared COTs from the UEs and decide a slot pattern for DLand UL transmissions. For example, the gNB could use DCI 2_0 to indicateSFI of the time resource with length L. L could be derived by gNB basedon the shared COT from the multiple UEs. As shown in FIG. 4, theintended shared COT from 2 UEs (402 and 404) are partially overlapped.Although it is not shown in the figure, the intended DL/UL slot patternfrom the 2 UEs may be also different. However, the gNB may transmit orreceive based on a single slot pattern. Therefore, based on the sharedCOT of 2 UEs, gNB may decide a slot pattern 406 and indicate it to theUEs by e.g. DCI 2_0. For example in FIG. 4, the pattern chosen by thegNB can include both DL resource and UL resource. The gNB may alsoschedule GB PUSCH on the UL resource. If indicated by DCI 2_0, CG PUSCHon the UL resource could be allowed too.

In some embodiments, the electronic device(s), network(s), system(s),chip(s) or component(s), or portions or implementations thereof, ofFIGS. 5-10, or some other figure herein, may be configured to performone or more processes, techniques, or methods as described herein, orportions thereof. One such process is depicted in FIG. 11. FIG. 11depicts an example method for practicing the various embodimentsdiscussed herein, for example, the operation of a UE for COT sharing inan unlicensed spectrum. As an example and not a limitation, the featuresof the flowchart can be performed by UE 501 a or 501 b of FIG. 5 or oneor more processors 1010 of hardware resources 1000 of FIG. 10.

At 1110, a UE contends for access to a channel in an unlicensedspectrum. For example, a UE can contend for access to a channel in anunlicensed spectrum, acquire a shared COT, and transmit data in theshared COT using the radio front end circuitry. After transmitting thedata, the network controller circuitry 835 can monitor the channel for adownlink control information (DCI) signal.

At 1120, the UE transmits an indication of a COT sharing boundary, anallowed length of a downlink (DL) portion that a 5G Node B (gNB) can useto access the shared COT, and/or an indication of an UL/DL switchingpattern.

At 1130, the UE receives a length of a transmission within the allowedlength, determines that a gap between the allowed length and the lengthof the transmission is less than a settable threshold value, andtransmit additional data in the shared COT, without performing a listenbefore talk (LBT). In some examples, the settable threshold value can be16 μs.

At 1140, the UE receives configuration information via a radio resourceconfiguration (RRC) signal or a DCI signal from the gNB.

At 1150, network controller circuitry 835 receives the DCI signalcomprising a first set of Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)occasions of a common search space (CSS), where the CSS informs two ormore UEs including the first UE accessing the shared COT (e.g.,including network controller circuitry 835) of the structure of thedownlink (DL) transmissions. For example, when two or more UEs and a gNBaccess the same shared COT, the gNB can inform the two or more UEs ofthe DL and/or the uplink (UL) transmissions.

In some embodiments, the electronic device(s), network(s), system(s),chip(s) or component(s), or portions or implementations thereof, ofFIGS. 5-10, or some other figure herein, may be configured to performone or more processes, techniques, or methods as described herein, orportions thereof. One such process is depicted in FIG. 12. FIG. 12depicts an example method for practicing the various embodimentsdiscussed herein, for example, the operation of a gNB for COT sharing inan unlicensed spectrum. As an example and not a limitation, the featuresof the flowchart can be performed by gNB 511 a or 511 b of FIG. 5 or oneor more processors 1010 of hardware resources 1000 of FIG. 10.

At 1210, one or more processors 1010 receive an indication of a COTsharing boundary from a first user equipment (UE) where the shared COToccurs in a channel in an unlicensed spectrum. One or more processors1010 perform a listen before talk (LBT) after receiving the COT sharingboundary, and based on the LBT, transmit data in the shared COT usingradio front end circuitry.

At 1220, one or more processors 1010 receive a second indication of asecond COT sharing boundary in the same channel from a second UE, anddetermine a slot pattern for downlink (DL) and uplink (UL) transmissionsbased on the first and/or second indications.

At 1230, one or more processors 1010 transmit a first set of PhysicalDownlink Control Channel (PDCCH) occasions of a common search space(CSS), where the CSS informs the first and second UEs that access theshared COT, of the slot pattern of the of the shared COT.

At 1240, one or more processors 1010 receive a first slot pattern fromthe first UE and a second slot pattern from the second UE, where thefirst and second slot patterns are different, and transmit data in theshared COT based on one of the slot patterns.

In embodiments, the steps in flowcharts 1100-1200 can be at leastpartially performed by application circuitry 605 or 705, basebandcircuitry 610 or 710, and/or processors 1014.

Systems and Implementations

FIG. 5 illustrates an example architecture of a system 500 of a network,in accordance with various embodiments. The following description isprovided for an example system 500 that operates in conjunction with theLTE system standards and 5G or NR system standards as provided by 3GPPtechnical specifications. However, the example embodiments are notlimited in this regard and the described embodiments may apply to othernetworks that benefit from the principles described herein, such asfuture 3GPP systems (e.g., Sixth Generation (6G)) systems, IEEE 802.16protocols (e.g., WLAN, WiMAX, etc.), or the like.

As shown by FIG. 5, the system 500 includes UE 501 a and UE 501 b(collectively referred to as “UEs 501” or “UE 501”). In this example,UEs 501 are illustrated as smartphones (e.g., handheld touchscreenmobile computing devices connectable to one or more cellular networks),but may also comprise any mobile or non-mobile computing device, such asconsumer electronics devices, cellular phones, smartphones, featurephones, tablet computers, wearable computer devices, personal digitalassistants (PDAs), pagers, wireless handsets, desktop computers, laptopcomputers, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI), in-car entertainment (ICE)devices, an Instrument Cluster (IC), head-up display (HUD) devices,onboard diagnostic (OBD) devices, dashtop mobile equipment (DME), mobiledata terminals (MDTs), Electronic Engine Management System (EEMS),electronic/engine control units (ECUs), electronic/engine controlmodules (ECMs), embedded systems, microcontrollers, control modules,engine management systems (EMS), networked or “smart” appliances, MTCdevices, M2M, IoT devices, and/or the like.

In some embodiments, any of the UEs 501 may be IoT UEs, which maycomprise a network access layer designed for low-power IoT applicationsutilizing short-lived UE connections. An IoT UE can utilize technologiessuch as M2M or MTC for exchanging data with an MTC server or device viaa PLMN, ProSe or D2D communication, sensor networks, or IoT networks.The M2M or MTC exchange of data may be a machine-initiated exchange ofdata. An IoT network describes interconnecting IoT UEs, which mayinclude uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices (within theInternet infrastructure), with short-lived connections. The IoT UEs mayexecute background applications (e.g., keep-alive messages, statusupdates, etc.) to facilitate the connections of the IoT network.

The UEs 501 may be configured to connect, for example, communicativelycouple, with an or RAN 510. In embodiments, the RAN 510 may be an NG RANor a 5G RAN, an E-UTRAN, or a legacy RAN, such as a UTRAN or GERAN. Asused herein, the term “NG RAN” or the like may refer to a RAN 510 thatoperates in an NR or 5G system 500, and the term “E-UTRAN” or the likemay refer to a RAN 510 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 500. The UEs501 utilize connections (or channels) 503 and 504, respectively, each ofwhich comprises a physical communications interface or layer (discussedin further detail below).

In this example, the connections 503 and 504 are illustrated as an airinterface to enable communicative coupling, and can be consistent withcellular communications protocols, such as a GSM protocol, a CDMAnetwork protocol, a PTT protocol, a POC protocol, a UMTS protocol, a3GPP LTE protocol, a 5G protocol, a NR protocol, and/or any of the othercommunications protocols discussed herein. In embodiments, the UEs 501may directly exchange communication data via a ProSe interface 505. TheProSe interface 505 may alternatively be referred to as a SL interface505 and may comprise one or more logical channels, including but notlimited to a PSCCH, a PSSCH, a PSDCH, and a PSBCH.

The UE 501 b is shown to be configured to access an AP 506 (alsoreferred to as “WLAN node 506,” “WLAN 506,” “WLAN Termination 506,” “WT506” or the like) via connection 507. The connection 507 can comprise alocal wireless connection, such as a connection consistent with any IEEE802.11 protocol, wherein the AP 506 would comprise a wireless fidelity(Wi-Fi®) router. In this example, the AP 506 is shown to be connected tothe Internet without connecting to the core network of the wirelesssystem (described in further detail below). In various embodiments, theUE 501 b, RAN 510, and AP 506 may be configured to utilize LWA operationand/or LWIP operation. The LWA operation may involve the UE 501 b inRRC_CONNECTED being configured by a RAN node 511 a-b to utilize radioresources of LTE and WLAN. LWIP operation may involve the UE 501 b usingWLAN radio resources (e.g., connection 507) via IPsec protocol tunnelingto authenticate and encrypt packets (e.g., IP packets) sent over theconnection 507. IPsec tunneling may include encapsulating the entiretyof original IP packets and adding a new packet header, therebyprotecting the original header of the IP packets.

The RAN 510 can include one or more AN nodes or RAN nodes 511 a and 511b (collectively referred to as “RAN nodes 511” or “RAN node 511”) thatenable the connections 503 and 504. As used herein, the terms “accessnode,” “access point,” or the like may describe equipment that providesthe radio baseband functions for data and/or voice connectivity betweena network and one or more users. These access nodes can be referred toas BS, gNBs, RAN nodes, eNBs, NodeBs, RSUs, TRxPs or TRPs, and so forth,and can comprise ground stations (e.g., terrestrial access points) orsatellite stations providing coverage within a geographic area (e.g., acell). As used herein, the term “NG RAN node” or the like may refer to aRAN node 511 that operates in an NR or 5G system 500 (for example, agNB), and the term “E-UTRAN node” or the like may refer to a RAN node511 that operates in an LTE or 4G system 500 (e.g., an eNB). Accordingto various embodiments, the RAN nodes 511 may be implemented as one ormore of a dedicated physical device such as a macrocell base station,and/or a low power (LP) base station for providing femtocells, picocellsor other like cells having smaller coverage areas, smaller usercapacity, or higher bandwidth compared to macrocells.

In some embodiments, all or parts of the RAN nodes 511 may beimplemented as one or more software entities running on server computersas part of a virtual network, which may be referred to as a CRAN and/ora virtual baseband unit pool (vBBUP). In these embodiments, the CRAN orvBBUP may implement a RAN function split, such as a PDCP split whereinRRC and PDCP layers are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and other L2 protocolentities are operated by individual RAN nodes 511; a MAC/PHY splitwherein RRC, PDCP, RLC, and MAC layers are operated by the CRAN/vBBUPand the PHY layer is operated by individual RAN nodes 511; or a “lowerPHY” split wherein RRC, PDCP, RLC, MAC layers and upper portions of thePHY layer are operated by the CRAN/vBBUP and lower portions of the PHYlayer are operated by individual RAN nodes 511. This virtualizedframework allows the freed-up processor cores of the RAN nodes 511 toperform other virtualized applications. In some implementations, anindividual RAN node 511 may represent individual gNB-DUs that areconnected to a gNB-CU via individual F1 interfaces (not shown by FIG.5). In these implementations, the gNB-DUs may include one or more remoteradio heads or RFEMs (see, e.g., FIG. 6), and the gNB-CU may be operatedby a server that is located in the RAN 510 (not shown) or by a serverpool in a similar manner as the CRAN/vBBUP. Additionally oralternatively, one or more of the RAN nodes 511 may be next generationeNBs (ng-eNBs), which are RAN nodes that provide E-UTRA user plane andcontrol plane protocol terminations toward the UEs 501, and areconnected to a 5GC (e.g., CN 1420 of FIG. 14) via an NG interface(discussed infra).

In V2X scenarios one or more of the RAN nodes 511 may be or act as RSUs.The term “Road Side Unit” or “RSU” may refer to any transportationinfrastructure entity used for V2X communications. An RSU may beimplemented in or by a suitable RAN node or a stationary (or relativelystationary) UE, where an RSU implemented in or by a UE may be referredto as a “UE-type RSU,” an RSU implemented in or by an eNB may bereferred to as an “eNB-type RSU,” an RSU implemented in or by a gNB maybe referred to as a “gNB-type RSU,” and the like. In one example, an RSUis a computing device coupled with radio frequency circuitry located ona roadside that provides connectivity support to passing vehicle UEs 501(vUEs 501). The RSU may also include internal data storage circuitry tostore intersection map geometry, traffic statistics, media, as well asapplications/software to sense and control ongoing vehicular andpedestrian traffic. The RSU may operate on the 5.9 GHz Direct ShortRange Communications (DSRC) band to provide very low latencycommunications required for high speed events, such as crash avoidance,traffic warnings, and the like. Additionally or alternatively, the RSUmay operate on the cellular V2X band to provide the aforementioned lowlatency communications, as well as other cellular communicationsservices. Additionally or alternatively, the RSU may operate as a Wi-Fihotspot (2.4 GHz band) and/or provide connectivity to one or morecellular networks to provide uplink and downlink communications. Thecomputing device(s) and some or all of the radiofrequency circuitry ofthe RSU may be packaged in a weatherproof enclosure suitable for outdoorinstallation, and may include a network interface controller to providea wired connection (e.g., Ethernet) to a traffic signal controllerand/or a backhaul network.

Any of the RAN nodes 511 can terminate the air interface protocol andcan be the first point of contact for the UEs 501. In some embodiments,any of the RAN nodes 511 can fulfill various logical functions for theRAN 510 including, but not limited to, radio network controller (RNC)functions such as radio bearer management, uplink and downlink dynamicradio resource management and data packet scheduling, and mobilitymanagement.

In embodiments, the UEs 501 can be configured to communicate using OFDMcommunication signals with each other or with any of the RAN nodes 511over a multicarrier communication channel in accordance with variouscommunication techniques, such as, but not limited to, an OFDMAcommunication technique (e.g., for downlink communications) or a SC-FDMAcommunication technique (e.g., for uplink and ProSe or sidelinkcommunications), although the scope of the embodiments is not limited inthis respect. The OFDM signals can comprise a plurality of orthogonalsubcarriers.

In some embodiments, a downlink resource grid can be used for downlinktransmissions from any of the RAN nodes 511 to the UEs 501, while uplinktransmissions can utilize similar techniques. The grid can be atime-frequency grid, called a resource grid or time-frequency resourcegrid, which is the physical resource in the downlink in each slot. Sucha time-frequency plane representation is a common practice for OFDMsystems, which makes it intuitive for radio resource allocation. Eachcolumn and each row of the resource grid corresponds to one OFDM symboland one OFDM subcarrier, respectively. The duration of the resource gridin the time domain corresponds to one slot in a radio frame. Thesmallest time-frequency unit in a resource grid is denoted as a resourceelement. Each resource grid comprises a number of resource blocks, whichdescribe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements.Each resource block comprises a collection of resource elements; in thefrequency domain, this may represent the smallest quantity of resourcesthat currently can be allocated. There are several different physicaldownlink channels that are conveyed using such resource blocks.

According to various embodiments, the UEs 501 and the RAN nodes 511communicate data (for example, transmit and receive) data over alicensed medium (also referred to as the “licensed spectrum” and/or the“licensed band”) and an unlicensed shared medium (also referred to asthe “unlicensed spectrum” and/or the “unlicensed band”). The licensedspectrum may include channels that operate in the frequency range ofapproximately 400 MHz to approximately 3.8 GHz, whereas the unlicensedspectrum may include the 5 GHz band.

To operate in the unlicensed spectrum, the UEs 501 and the RAN nodes 511may operate using LAA, eLAA, and/or feLAA mechanisms. In theseimplementations, the UEs 501 and the RAN nodes 511 may perform one ormore known medium-sensing operations and/or carrier-sensing operationsin order to determine whether one or more channels in the unlicensedspectrum is unavailable or otherwise occupied prior to transmitting inthe unlicensed spectrum. The medium/carrier sensing operations may beperformed according to a listen-before-talk (LBT) protocol.

LBT is a mechanism whereby equipment (for example, UEs 501 RAN nodes511, etc.) senses a medium (for example, a channel or carrier frequency)and transmits when the medium is sensed to be idle (or when a specificchannel in the medium is sensed to be unoccupied). The medium sensingoperation may include CCA, which utilizes at least ED to determine thepresence or absence of other signals on a channel in order to determineif a channel is occupied or clear. This LBT mechanism allowscellular/LAA networks to coexist with incumbent systems in theunlicensed spectrum and with other LAA networks. ED may include sensingRF energy across an intended transmission band for a period of time andcomparing the sensed RF energy to a predefined or configured threshold.

Typically, the incumbent systems in the 5 GHz band are WLANs based onIEEE 802.11 technologies. WLAN employs a contention-based channel accessmechanism, called CSMA/CA. Here, when a WLAN node (e.g., a mobilestation (MS) such as UE 501, AP 506, or the like) intends to transmit,the WLAN node may first perform CCA before transmission. Additionally, abackoff mechanism is used to avoid collisions in situations where morethan one WLAN node senses the channel as idle and transmits at the sametime. The backoff mechanism may be a counter that is drawn randomlywithin the CWS, which is increased exponentially upon the occurrence ofcollision and reset to a minimum value when the transmission succeeds.The LBT mechanism designed for LAA is somewhat similar to the CSMA/CA ofWLAN. In some implementations, the LBT procedure for DL or ULtransmission bursts including PDSCH or PUSCH transmissions,respectively, may have an LAA contention window that is variable inlength between X and Y ECCA slots, where X and Y are minimum and maximumvalues for the CWSs for LAA. In one example, the minimum CWS for an LAAtransmission may be 9 microseconds (μs); however, the size of the CWSand a MCOT (for example, a transmission burst) may be based ongovernmental regulatory requirements.

The LAA mechanisms are built upon CA technologies of LTE-Advancedsystems. In CA, each aggregated carrier is referred to as a CC. A CC mayhave a bandwidth of 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 or 20 MHz and a maximum of fiveCCs can be aggregated, and therefore, a maximum aggregated bandwidth is100 MHz. In FDD systems, the number of aggregated carriers can bedifferent for DL and UL, where the number of UL CCs is equal to or lowerthan the number of DL component carriers. In some cases, individual CCscan have a different bandwidth than other CCs. In TDD systems, thenumber of CCs as well as the bandwidths of each CC is usually the samefor DL and UL.

CA also comprises individual serving cells to provide individual CCs.The coverage of the serving cells may differ, for example, because CCson different frequency bands will experience different pathloss. Aprimary service cell or PCell may provide a PCC for both UL and DL, andmay handle RRC and NAS related activities. The other serving cells arereferred to as SCells, and each SCell may provide an individual SCC forboth UL and DL. The SCCs may be added and removed as required, whilechanging the PCC may require the UE 501 to undergo a handover. In LAA,eLAA, and feLAA, some or all of the SCells may operate in the unlicensedspectrum (referred to as “LAA SCells”), and the LAA SCells are assistedby a PCell operating in the licensed spectrum. When a UE is configuredwith more than one LAA SCell, the UE may receive UL grants on theconfigured LAA SCells indicating different PUSCH starting positionswithin a same subframe.

The PDSCH carries user data and higher-layer signaling to the UEs 501.The PDCCH carries information about the transport format and resourceallocations related to the PDSCH channel, among other things. It mayalso inform the UEs 501 about the transport format, resource allocation,and HARQ information related to the uplink shared channel. Typically,downlink scheduling (assigning control and shared channel resourceblocks to the UE 501 b within a cell) may be performed at any of the RANnodes 511 based on channel quality information fed back from any of theUEs 501. The downlink resource assignment information may be sent on thePDCCH used for (e.g., assigned to) each of the UEs 501.

The PDCCH uses CCEs to convey the control information. Before beingmapped to resource elements, the PDCCH complex-valued symbols may firstbe organized into quadruplets, which may then be permuted using asub-block interleaver for rate matching. Each PDCCH may be transmittedusing one or more of these CCEs, where each CCE may correspond to ninesets of four physical resource elements known as REGs. Four QuadraturePhase Shift Keying (QPSK) symbols may be mapped to each REG. The PDCCHcan be transmitted using one or more CCEs, depending on the size of theDCI and the channel condition. There can be four or more different PDCCHformats defined in LTE with different numbers of CCEs (e.g., aggregationlevel, L=1, 2, 4, or 8).

Some embodiments may use concepts for resource allocation for controlchannel information that are an extension of the above-describedconcepts. For example, some embodiments may utilize an EPDCCH that usesPDSCH resources for control information transmission. The EPDCCH may betransmitted using one or more ECCEs. Similar to above, each ECCE maycorrespond to nine sets of four physical resource elements known as anEREGs. An ECCE may have other numbers of EREGs in some situations.

The RAN nodes 511 may be configured to communicate with one another viainterface 512. In embodiments where the system 500 is an LTE system(e.g., when CN 520 is an EPC 1320 as in FIG. 13), the interface 512 maybe an X2 interface 512. The X2 interface may be defined between two ormore RAN nodes 511 (e.g., two or more eNBs and the like) that connect toEPC 520, and/or between two eNBs connecting to EPC 520. In someimplementations, the X2 interface may include an X2 user plane interface(X2-U) and an X2 control plane interface (X2-C). The X2-U may provideflow control mechanisms for user data packets transferred over the X2interface, and may be used to communicate information about the deliveryof user data between eNBs. For example, the X2-U may provide specificsequence number information for user data transferred from a MeNB to anSeNB; information about successful in sequence delivery of PDCP PDUs toa UE 501 from an SeNB for user data; information of PDCP PDUs that werenot delivered to a UE 501; information about a current minimum desiredbuffer size at the SeNB for transmitting to the UE user data; and thelike. The X2-C may provide intra-LTE access mobility functionality,including context transfers from source to target eNBs, user planetransport control, etc.; load management functionality; as well asinter-cell interference coordination functionality.

In embodiments where the system 500 is a 5G or NR system (e.g., when CN520 is an 5GC 1420 as in FIG. 14), the interface 512 may be an Xninterface 512. The Xn interface is defined between two or more RAN nodes511 (e.g., two or more gNBs and the like) that connect to 5GC 520,between a RAN node 511 (e.g., a gNB) connecting to 5GC 520 and an eNB,and/or between two eNBs connecting to 5GC 520. In some implementations,the Xn interface may include an Xn user plane (Xn-U) interface and an Xncontrol plane (Xn-C) interface. The Xn-U may provide non-guaranteeddelivery of user plane PDUs and support/provide data forwarding and flowcontrol functionality. The Xn-C may provide management and errorhandling functionality, functionality to manage the Xn-C interface;mobility support for UE 501 in a connected mode (e.g., CM-CONNECTED)including functionality to manage the UE mobility for connected modebetween one or more RAN nodes 511. The mobility support may includecontext transfer from an old (source) serving RAN node 511 to new(target) serving RAN node 511; and control of user plane tunnels betweenold (source) serving RAN node 511 to new (target) serving RAN node 511.A protocol stack of the Xn-U may include a transport network layer builton Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer, and a GTP-U layer on top of aUDP and/or IP layer(s) to carry user plane PDUs. The Xn-C protocol stackmay include an application layer signaling protocol (referred to as XnApplication Protocol (Xn-AP)) and a transport network layer that isbuilt on SCTP. The SCTP may be on top of an IP layer, and may providethe guaranteed delivery of application layer messages. In the transportIP layer, point-to-point transmission is used to deliver the signalingPDUs. In other implementations, the Xn-U protocol stack and/or the Xn-Cprotocol stack may be same or similar to the user plane and/or controlplane protocol stack(s) shown and described herein.

The RAN 510 is shown to be communicatively coupled to a core network—inthis embodiment, core network (CN) 520. The CN 520 may comprise aplurality of network elements 522, which are configured to offer variousdata and telecommunications services to customers/subscribers (e.g.,users of UEs 501) who are connected to the CN 520 via the RAN 510. Thecomponents of the CN 520 may be implemented in one physical node orseparate physical nodes including components to read and executeinstructions from a machine-readable or computer-readable medium (e.g.,a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium). In some embodiments,NFV may be utilized to virtualize any or all of the above-describednetwork node functions via executable instructions stored in one or morecomputer-readable storage mediums (described in further detail below). Alogical instantiation of the CN 520 may be referred to as a networkslice, and a logical instantiation of a portion of the CN 520 may bereferred to as a network sub-slice. NFV architectures andinfrastructures may be used to virtualize one or more network functions,alternatively performed by proprietary hardware, onto physical resourcescomprising a combination of industry-standard server hardware, storagehardware, or switches. In other words, NFV systems can be used toexecute virtual or reconfigurable implementations of one or more EPCcomponents/functions.

Generally, the application server 530 may be an element offeringapplications that use IP bearer resources with the core network (e.g.,UMTS PS domain, LTE PS data services, etc.). The application server 530can also be configured to support one or more communication services(e.g., VoIP sessions, PTT sessions, group communication sessions, socialnetworking services, etc.) for the UEs 501 via the EPC 520.

In embodiments, the CN 520 may be a 5GC (referred to as “5GC 520” or thelike), and the RAN 510 may be connected with the CN 520 via an NGinterface 513. In embodiments, the NG interface 513 may be split intotwo parts, an NG user plane (NG-U) interface 514, which carries trafficdata between the RAN nodes 511 and a UPF, and the S1 control plane(NG-C) interface 515, which is a signaling interface between the RANnodes 511 and AMFs. Embodiments where the CN 520 is a 5GC 520 arediscussed in more detail with regard to FIG. 14.

In embodiments, the CN 520 may be a 5G CN (referred to as “5GC 520” orthe like), while in other embodiments, the CN 520 may be an EPC). WhereCN 520 is an EPC (referred to as “EPC 520” or the like), the RAN 510 maybe connected with the CN 520 via an S1 interface 513. In embodiments,the S1 interface 513 may be split into two parts, an S1 user plane(S1-U) interface 514, which carries traffic data between the RAN nodes511 and the S-GW, and the S1-MME interface 515, which is a signalinginterface between the RAN nodes 511 and MMEs.

FIG. 13 illustrates an example architecture of a system 1300 including afirst CN 1320, in accordance with various embodiments. In this example,system 1300 may implement the LTE standard wherein the CN 1320 is an EPC1320 that corresponds with CN 520 of FIG. 5. Additionally, the UE 1301may be the same or similar as the UEs 501 of FIG. 5, and the E-UTRAN1310 may be a RAN that is the same or similar to the RAN 510 of FIG. 5,and which may include RAN nodes 511 discussed previously. The CN 1320may comprise MMEs 1321, an S-GW 1322, a P-GW 1323, a HSS 1324, and aSGSN 1325.

The MMEs 1321 may be similar in function to the control plane of legacySGSN, and may implement MM functions to keep track of the currentlocation of a UE 1301. The MMEs 1321 may perform various MM proceduresto manage mobility aspects in access such as gateway selection andtracking area list management. MM (also referred to as “EPS MM” or “EMM”in E-UTRAN systems) may refer to all applicable procedures, methods,data storage, etc. that are used to maintain knowledge about a presentlocation of the UE 1301, provide user identity confidentiality, and/orperform other like services to users/subscribers. Each UE 1301 and theMME 1321 may include an MM or EMM sublayer, and an MM context may beestablished in the UE 1301 and the MME 1321 when an attach procedure issuccessfully completed. The MM context may be a data structure ordatabase object that stores MM-related information of the UE 1301. TheMMEs 1321 may be coupled with the HSS 1324 via an S6a reference point,coupled with the SGSN 1325 via an S3 reference point, and coupled withthe S-GW 1322 via an S11 reference point.

The SGSN 1325 may be a node that serves the UE 1301 by tracking thelocation of an individual UE 1301 and performing security functions. Inaddition, the SGSN 1325 may perform Inter-EPC node signaling formobility between 2G/3G and E-UTRAN 3GPP access networks; PDN and S-GWselection as specified by the MMEs 1321; handling of UE 1301 time zonefunctions as specified by the MMEs 1321; and MME selection for handoversto E-UTRAN 3GPP access network. The S3 reference point between the MMEs1321 and the SGSN 1325 may enable user and bearer information exchangefor inter-3GPP access network mobility in idle and/or active states.

The HSS 1324 may comprise a database for network users, includingsubscription-related information to support the network entities'handling of communication sessions. The EPC 1320 may comprise one orseveral HSSs 1324, depending on the number of mobile subscribers, on thecapacity of the equipment, on the organization of the network, etc. Forexample, the HSS 1324 can provide support for routing/roaming,authentication, authorization, naming/addressing resolution, locationdependencies, etc. An S6a reference point between the HSS 1324 and theMMEs 1321 may enable transfer of subscription and authentication datafor authenticating/authorizing user access to the EPC 1320 between HSS1324 and the MMEs 1321.

The S-GW 1322 may terminate the S1 interface 513 (“S1-U” in FIG. 13)toward the RAN 1310, and routes data packets between the RAN 1310 andthe EPC 1320. In addition, the S-GW 1322 may be a local mobility anchorpoint for inter-RAN node handovers and also may provide an anchor forinter-3GPP mobility. Other responsibilities may include lawfulintercept, charging, and some policy enforcement. The S11 referencepoint between the S-GW 1322 and the MMEs 1321 may provide a controlplane between the MMEs 1321 and the S-GW 1322. The S-GW 1322 may becoupled with the P-GW 1323 via an S5 reference point.

The P-GW 1323 may terminate an SGi interface toward a PDN 1330. The P-GW1323 may route data packets between the EPC 1320 and external networkssuch as a network including the application server 530 (alternativelyreferred to as an “AF”) via an IP interface 525 (see e.g., FIG. 5). Inembodiments, the P-GW 1323 may be communicatively coupled to anapplication server (application server 530 of FIG. 5 or PDN 1330 in FIG.13) via an IP communications interface 525 (see, e.g., FIG. 5). The S5reference point between the P-GW 1323 and the S-GW 1322 may provide userplane tunneling and tunnel management between the P-GW 1323 and the S-GW1322. The S5 reference point may also be used for S-GW 1322 relocationdue to UE 1301 mobility and if the S-GW 1322 needs to connect to anon-collocated P-GW 1323 for the required PDN connectivity. The P-GW1323 may further include a node for policy enforcement and charging datacollection (e.g., PCEF (not shown)). Additionally, the SGi referencepoint between the P-GW 1323 and the packet data network (PDN) 1330 maybe an operator external public, a private PDN, or an intra operatorpacket data network, for example, for provision of IMS services. TheP-GW 1323 may be coupled with a PCRF 1326 via a Gx reference point.

PCRF 1326 is the policy and charging control element of the EPC 1320. Ina non-roaming scenario, there may be a single PCRF 1326 in the HomePublic Land Mobile Network (HPLMN) associated with a UE 1301's InternetProtocol Connectivity Access Network (IP-CAN) session. In a roamingscenario with local breakout of traffic, there may be two PCRFsassociated with a UE 1301's IP-CAN session, a Home PCRF (H-PCRF) withinan HPLMN and a Visited PCRF (V-PCRF) within a Visited Public Land MobileNetwork (VPLMN). The PCRF 1326 may be communicatively coupled to theapplication server 1330 via the P-GW 1323. The application server 1330may signal the PCRF 1326 to indicate a new service flow and select theappropriate QoS and charging parameters. The PCRF 1326 may provisionthis rule into a PCEF (not shown) with the appropriate TFT and QCI,which commences the QoS and charging as specified by the applicationserver 1330. The Gx reference point between the PCRF 1326 and the P-GW1323 may allow for the transfer of QoS policy and charging rules fromthe PCRF 1326 to PCEF in the P-GW 1323. An Rx reference point may residebetween the PDN 1330 (or “AF 1330”) and the PCRF 1326.

FIG. 14 illustrates an architecture of a system 1400 including a secondCN 1420 in accordance with various embodiments. The system 1400 is shownto include a UE 1401, which may be the same or similar to the UEs 501and UE 1301 discussed previously; a (R)AN 1410, which may be the same orsimilar to the RAN 510 and RAN 1310 discussed previously, and which mayinclude RAN nodes 511 discussed previously; and a DN 1403, which may be,for example, operator services, Internet access or 3rd party services;and a 5GC 1420. The 5GC 1420 may include an AUSF 1422; an AMF 1421; aSMF 1424; a NEF 1423; a PCF 1426; a NRF 1425; a UDM 1427; an AF 1428; aUPF 1402; and a NSSF 1429.

The UPF 1402 may act as an anchor point for intra-RAT and inter-RATmobility, an external PDU session point of interconnect to DN 1403, anda branching point to support multi-homed PDU session. The UPF 1402 mayalso perform packet routing and forwarding, perform packet inspection,enforce the user plane part of policy rules, lawfully intercept packets(UP collection), perform traffic usage reporting, perform QoS handlingfor a user plane (e.g., packet filtering, gating, UL/DL rateenforcement), perform Uplink Traffic verification (e.g., SDF to QoS flowmapping), transport level packet marking in the uplink and downlink, andperform downlink packet buffering and downlink data notificationtriggering. UPF 1402 may include an uplink classifier to support routingtraffic flows to a data network. The DN 1403 may represent variousnetwork operator services, Internet access, or third party services. DN1403 may include, or be similar to, application server 530 discussedpreviously. The UPF 1402 may interact with the SMF 1424 via an N4reference point between the SMF 1424 and the UPF 1402.

The AUSF 1422 may store data for authentication of UE 1401 and handleauthentication-related functionality. The AUSF 1422 may facilitate acommon authentication framework for various access types. The AUSF 1422may communicate with the AMF 1421 via an N12 reference point between theAMF 1421 and the AUSF 1422; and may communicate with the UDM 1427 via anN13 reference point between the UDM 1427 and the AUSF 1422.Additionally, the AUSF 1422 may exhibit an Nausf service-basedinterface.

The AMF 1421 may be responsible for registration management (e.g., forregistering UE 1401, etc.), connection management, reachabilitymanagement, mobility management, and lawful interception of AMF-relatedevents, and access authentication and authorization. The AMF 1421 may bea termination point for the an N11 reference point between the AMF 1421and the SMF 1424. The AMF 1421 may provide transport for SM messagesbetween the UE 1401 and the SMF 1424, and act as a transparent proxy forrouting SM messages. AMF 1421 may also provide transport for SMSmessages between UE 1401 and an SMSF (not shown by FIG. 14). AMF 1421may act as SEAF, which may include interaction with the AUSF 1422 andthe UE 1401, receipt of an intermediate key that was established as aresult of the UE 1401 authentication process. Where USIM basedauthentication is used, the AMF 1421 may retrieve the security materialfrom the AUSF 1422. AMF 1421 may also include a SCM function, whichreceives a key from the SEA that it uses to derive access-networkspecific keys. Furthermore, AMF 1421 may be a termination point of a RANCP interface, which may include or be an N2 reference point between the(R)AN 1410 and the AMF 1421; and the AMF 1421 may be a termination pointof NAS (N1) signalling, and perform NAS ciphering and integrityprotection.

AMF 1421 may also support NAS signalling with a UE 1401 over an N3 IWFinterface. The N3IWF may be used to provide access to untrustedentities. N3IWF may be a termination point for the N2 interface betweenthe (R)AN 1410 and the AMF 1421 for the control plane, and may be atermination point for the N3 reference point between the (R)AN 1410 andthe UPF 1402 for the user plane. As such, the AMF 1421 may handle N2signalling from the SMF 1424 and the AMF 1421 for PDU sessions and QoS,encapsulate/de-encapsulate packets for IPSec and N3 tunnelling, mark N3user-plane packets in the uplink, and enforce QoS corresponding to N3packet marking taking into account QoS requirements associated with suchmarking received over N2. N3IWF may also relay uplink and downlinkcontrol-plane NAS signalling between the UE 1401 and AMF 1421 via an N1reference point between the UE 1401 and the AMF 1421, and relay uplinkand downlink user-plane packets between the UE 1401 and UPF 1402. TheN3IWF also provides mechanisms for IPsec tunnel establishment with theUE 1401. The AMF 1421 may exhibit an Namf service-based interface, andmay be a termination point for an N14 reference point between two AMFs1421 and an N17 reference point between the AMF 1421 and a 5G-EIR (notshown by FIG. 14).

The UE 1401 may need to register with the AMF 1421 in order to receivenetwork services. RM is used to register or deregister the UE 1401 withthe network (e.g., AMF 1421), and establish a UE context in the network(e.g., AMF 1421). The UE 1401 may operate in an RM-REGISTERED state oran RM-DEREGISTERED state. In the RM DEREGISTERED state, the UE 1401 isnot registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF 1421 holds novalid location or routing information for the UE 1401 so the UE 1401 isnot reachable by the AMF 1421. In the RM REGISTERED state, the UE 1401is registered with the network, and the UE context in AMF 1421 may holda valid location or routing information for the UE 1401 so the UE 1401is reachable by the AMF 1421. In the RM-REGISTERED state, the UE 1401may perform mobility Registration Update procedures, perform periodicRegistration Update procedures triggered by expiration of the periodicupdate timer (e.g., to notify the network that the UE 1401 is stillactive), and perform a Registration Update procedure to update UEcapability information or to re-negotiate protocol parameters with thenetwork, among others.

The AMF 1421 may store one or more RM contexts for the UE 1401, whereeach RM context is associated with a specific access to the network. TheRM context may be a data structure, database object, etc. that indicatesor stores, inter alia, a registration state per access type and theperiodic update timer. The AMF 1421 may also store a 5GC MM context thatmay be the same or similar to the (E)MM context discussed previously. Invarious embodiments, the AMF 1421 may store a CE mode B Restrictionparameter of the UE 1401 in an associated MM context or RM context. TheAMF 1421 may also derive the value, when needed, from the UE's usagesetting parameter already stored in the UE context (and/or MM/RMcontext).

CM may be used to establish and release a signaling connection betweenthe UE 1401 and the AMF 1421 over the N1 interface. The signalingconnection is used to enable NAS signaling exchange between the UE 1401and the CN 1420, and comprises both the signaling connection between theUE and the AN (e.g., RRC connection or UE-N3IWF connection for non-3GPPaccess) and the N2 connection for the UE 1401 between the AN (e.g., RAN1410) and the AMF 1421. The UE 1401 may operate in one of two CM states,CM-IDLE mode or CM-CONNECTED mode. When the UE 1401 is operating in theCM-IDLE state/mode, the UE 1401 may have no NAS signaling connectionestablished with the AMF 1421 over the N1 interface, and there may be(R)AN 1410 signaling connection (e.g., N2 and/or N3 connections) for theUE 1401. When the UE 1401 is operating in the CM-CONNECTED state/mode,the UE 1401 may have an established NAS signaling connection with theAMF 1421 over the N1 interface, and there may be a (R)AN 1410 signalingconnection (e.g., N2 and/or N3 connections) for the UE 1401.Establishment of an N2 connection between the (R)AN 1410 and the AMF1421 may cause the UE 1401 to transition from CM-IDLE mode toCM-CONNECTED mode, and the UE 1401 may transition from the CM-CONNECTEDmode to the CM-IDLE mode when N2 signaling between the (R)AN 1410 andthe AMF 1421 is released.

The SMF 1424 may be responsible for SM (e.g., session establishment,modify and release, including tunnel maintain between UPF and AN node);UE IP address allocation and management (including optionalauthorization); selection and control of UP function; configuringtraffic steering at UPF to route traffic to proper destination;termination of interfaces toward policy control functions; controllingpart of policy enforcement and QoS; lawful intercept (for SM events andinterface to LI system); termination of SM parts of NAS messages;downlink data notification; initiating AN specific SM information, sentvia AMF over N2 to AN; and determining SSC mode of a session. SM mayrefer to management of a PDU session, and a PDU session or “session” mayrefer to a PDU connectivity service that provides or enables theexchange of PDUs between a UE 1401 and a data network (DN) 1403identified by a Data Network Name (DNN). PDU sessions may be establishedupon UE 1401 request, modified upon UE 1401 and 5GC 1420 request, andreleased upon UE 1401 and 5GC 1420 request using NAS SM signalingexchanged over the N1 reference point between the UE 1401 and the SMF1424. Upon request from an application server, the 5GC 1420 may triggera specific application in the UE 1401. In response to receipt of thetrigger message, the UE 1401 may pass the trigger message (or relevantparts/information of the trigger message) to one or more identifiedapplications in the UE 1401. The identified application(s) in the UE1401 may establish a PDU session to a specific DNN. The SMF 1424 maycheck whether the UE 1401 requests are compliant with user subscriptioninformation associated with the UE 1401. In this regard, the SMF 1424may retrieve and/or request to receive update notifications on SMF 1424level subscription data from the UDM 1427.

The SMF 1424 may include the following roaming functionality: handlinglocal enforcement to apply QoS SLAB (VPLMN); charging data collectionand charging interface (VPLMN); lawful intercept (in VPLMN for SM eventsand interface to LI system); and support for interaction with externalDN for transport of signalling for PDU sessionauthorization/authentication by external DN. An N16 reference pointbetween two SMFs 1424 may be included in the system 1400, which may bebetween another SMF 1424 in a visited network and the SMF 1424 in thehome network in roaming scenarios. Additionally, the SMF 1424 mayexhibit the Nsmf service-based interface.

The NEF 1423 may provide means for securely exposing the services andcapabilities provided by 3GPP network functions for third party,internal exposure/re-exposure, Application Functions (e.g., AF 1428),edge computing or fog computing systems, etc. In such embodiments, theNEF 1423 may authenticate, authorize, and/or throttle the AFs. NEF 1423may also translate information exchanged with the AF 1428 andinformation exchanged with internal network functions. For example, theNEF 1423 may translate between an AF-Service-Identifier and an internal5GC information. NEF 1423 may also receive information from othernetwork functions (NFs) based on exposed capabilities of other networkfunctions. This information may be stored at the NEF 1423 as structureddata, or at a data storage NF using standardized interfaces. The storedinformation can then be re-exposed by the NEF 1423 to other NFs and AFs,and/or used for other purposes such as analytics. Additionally, the NEF1423 may exhibit an Nnef service-based interface.

The NRF 1425 may support service discovery functions, receive NFdiscovery requests from NF instances, and provide the information of thediscovered NF instances to the NF instances. NRF 1425 also maintainsinformation of available NF instances and their supported services. Asused herein, the terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like mayrefer to the creation of an instance, and an “instance” may refer to aconcrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, duringexecution of program code. Additionally, the NRF 1425 may exhibit theNnrf service-based interface.

The PCF 1426 may provide policy rules to control plane function(s) toenforce them, and may also support unified policy framework to governnetwork behaviour. The PCF 1426 may also implement an FE to accesssubscription information relevant for policy decisions in a UDR of theUDM 1427. The PCF 1426 may communicate with the AMF 1421 via an N15reference point between the PCF 1426 and the AMF 1421, which may includea PCF 1426 in a visited network and the AMF 1421 in case of roamingscenarios. The PCF 1426 may communicate with the AF 1428 via an N5reference point between the PCF 1426 and the AF 1428; and with the SMF1424 via an N7 reference point between the PCF 1426 and the SMF 1424.The system 1400 and/or CN 1420 may also include an N24 reference pointbetween the PCF 1426 (in the home network) and a PCF 1426 in a visitednetwork. Additionally, the PCF 1426 may exhibit an Npcf service-basedinterface.

The UDM 1427 may handle subscription-related information to support thenetwork entities' handling of communication sessions, and may storesubscription data of UE 1401. For example, subscription data may becommunicated between the UDM 1427 and the AMF 1421 via an N8 referencepoint between the UDM 1427 and the AMF. The UDM 1427 may include twoparts, an application FE and a UDR (the FE and UDR are not shown by FIG.14). The UDR may store subscription data and policy data for the UDM1427 and the PCF 1426, and/or structured data for exposure andapplication data (including PFDs for application detection, applicationrequest information for multiple UEs 1401) for the NEF 1423. The Nudrservice-based interface may be exhibited by the UDR 221 to allow the UDM1427, PCF 1426, and NEF 1423 to access a particular set of the storeddata, as well as to read, update (e.g., add, modify), delete, andsubscribe to notification of relevant data changes in the UDR. The UDMmay include a UDM-FE, which is in charge of processing credentials,location management, subscription management and so on. Severaldifferent front ends may serve the same user in different transactions.The UDM-FE accesses subscription information stored in the UDR andperforms authentication credential processing, user identificationhandling, access authorization, registration/mobility management, andsubscription management. The UDR may interact with the SMF 1424 via anN10 reference point between the UDM 1427 and the SMF 1424. UDM 1427 mayalso support SMS management, wherein an SMS-FE implements the similarapplication logic as discussed previously. Additionally, the UDM 1427may exhibit the Nudm service-based interface.

The AF 1428 may provide application influence on traffic routing,provide access to the NCE, and interact with the policy framework forpolicy control. The NCE may be a mechanism that allows the 5GC 1420 andAF 1428 to provide information to each other via NEF 1423, which may beused for edge computing implementations. In such implementations, thenetwork operator and third party services may be hosted close to the UE1401 access point of attachment to achieve an efficient service deliverythrough the reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transportnetwork. For edge computing implementations, the 5GC may select a UPF1402 close to the UE 1401 and execute traffic steering from the UPF 1402to DN 1403 via the N6 interface. This may be based on the UEsubscription data, UE location, and information provided by the AF 1428.In this way, the AF 1428 may influence UPF (re)selection and trafficrouting. Based on operator deployment, when AF 1428 is considered to bea trusted entity, the network operator may permit AF 1428 to interactdirectly with relevant NFs. Additionally, the AF 1428 may exhibit an Nafservice-based interface.

The NSSF 1429 may select a set of network slice instances serving the UE1401. The NSSF 1429 may also determine allowed NSSAI and the mapping tothe subscribed S-NSSAIs, if needed. The NSSF 1429 may also determine theAMF set to be used to serve the UE 1401, or a list of candidate AMF(s)1421 based on a suitable configuration and possibly by querying the NRF1425. The selection of a set of network slice instances for the UE 1401may be triggered by the AMF 1421 with which the UE 1401 is registered byinteracting with the NSSF 1429, which may lead to a change of AMF 1421.The NSSF 1429 may interact with the AMF 1421 via an N22 reference pointbetween AMF 1421 and NSSF 1429; and may communicate with another NSSF1429 in a visited network via an N31 reference point (not shown by FIG.14). Additionally, the NSSF 1429 may exhibit an Nnssf service-basedinterface.

As discussed previously, the CN 1420 may include an SMSF, which may beresponsible for SMS subscription checking and verification, and relayingSM messages to/from the UE 1401 to/from other entities, such as anSMS-GMSC/IWMSC/SMS-router. The SMS may also interact with AMF 1421 andUDM 1427 for a notification procedure that the UE 1401 is available forSMS transfer (e.g., set a UE not reachable flag, and notifying UDM 1427when UE 1401 is available for SMS).

The CN 120 may also include other elements that are not shown by FIG.14, such as a Data Storage system/architecture, a 5G-EIR, a SEPP, andthe like. The Data Storage system may include a SDSF, an UDSF, and/orthe like. Any NF may store and retrieve unstructured data into/from theUDSF (e.g., UE contexts), via N18 reference point between any NF and theUDSF (not shown by FIG. 14). Individual NFs may share a UDSF for storingtheir respective unstructured data or individual NFs may each have theirown UDSF located at or near the individual NFs. Additionally, the UDSFmay exhibit an Nudsf service-based interface (not shown by FIG. 14). The5G-EIR may be an NF that checks the status of PEI for determiningwhether particular equipment/entities are blacklisted from the network;and the SEPP may be a non-transparent proxy that performs topologyhiding, message filtering, and policing on inter-PLMN control planeinterfaces.

Additionally, there may be many more reference points and/orservice-based interfaces between the NF services in the NFs; however,these interfaces and reference points have been omitted from FIG. 14 forclarity. In one example, the CN 1420 may include an Nx interface, whichis an inter-CN interface between the MME (e.g., MME 1321) and the AMF1421 in order to enable interworking between CN 1420 and CN 1320. Otherexample interfaces/reference points may include an N5g-EIR service-basedinterface exhibited by a 5G-EIR, an N27 reference point between the NRFin the visited network and the NRF in the home network; and an N31reference point between the NSSF in the visited network and the NSSF inthe home network.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of infrastructure equipment 600 inaccordance with various embodiments. The infrastructure equipment 600(or “system 600”) may be implemented as a base station, radio head, RANnode such as the RAN nodes 511 and/or AP 506 shown and describedpreviously, application server(s) 530, and/or any other element/devicediscussed herein. In other examples, the system 600 could be implementedin or by a UE.

The system 600 includes application circuitry 605, baseband circuitry610, one or more radio front end modules (RFEMs) 615, memory circuitry620, power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 625, power teecircuitry 630, network controller circuitry 635, network interfaceconnector 640, satellite positioning circuitry 645, and user interface650. In some embodiments, the device 600 may include additional elementssuch as, for example, memory/storage, display, camera, sensor, orinput/output (I/O) interface. In other embodiments, the componentsdescribed below may be included in more than one device. For example,said circuitries may be separately included in more than one device forCRAN, vBBU, or other like implementations.

Application circuitry 605 includes circuitry such as, but not limited toone or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one ormore of low drop-out voltage regulators (LDOs), interrupt controllers,serial interfaces such as SPI, I²C or universal programmable serialinterface module, real time clock (RTC), timer-counters includinginterval and watchdog timers, general purpose input/output (I/O or IO),memory card controllers such as Secure Digital (SD) MultiMediaCard (MMC)or similar, Universal Serial Bus (USB) interfaces, Mobile IndustryProcessor Interface (MIPI) interfaces and Joint Test Access Group (JTAG)test access ports. The processors (or cores) of the applicationcircuitry 605 may be coupled with or may include memory/storage elementsand may be configured to execute instructions stored in thememory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems torun on the system 600. In some implementations, the memory/storageelements may be on-chip memory circuitry, which may include any suitablevolatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM,Flash memory, solid-state memory, and/or any other type of memory devicetechnology, such as those discussed herein.

The processor(s) of application circuitry 605 may include, for example,one or more processor cores (CPUs), one or more application processors,one or more graphics processing units (GPUs), one or more reducedinstruction set computing (RISC) processors, one or more Acorn RISCMachine (ARM) processors, one or more complex instruction set computing(CISC) processors, one or more digital signal processors (DSP), one ormore FPGAs, one or more PLDs, one or more ASICs, one or moremicroprocessors or controllers, or any suitable combination thereof. Insome embodiments, the application circuitry 605 may comprise, or may be,a special-purpose processor/controller to operate according to thevarious embodiments herein. As examples, the processor(s) of applicationcircuitry 605 may include one or more Intel Pentium®, Core®, or Xeon®processor(s); Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor(s),Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), or Epyc® processors; ARM-basedprocessor(s) licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd. such as the ARM Cortex-Afamily of processors and the ThunderX2® provided by Cavium™, Inc.; aMIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such as MIPS WarriorP-class processors; and/or the like. In some embodiments, the system 600may not utilize application circuitry 605, and instead may include aspecial-purpose processor/controller to process IP data received from anEPC or 5GC, for example.

In some implementations, the application circuitry 605 may include oneor more hardware accelerators, which may be microprocessors,programmable processing devices, or the like. The one or more hardwareaccelerators may include, for example, computer vision (CV) and/or deeplearning (DL) accelerators. As examples, the programmable processingdevices may be one or more a field-programmable devices (FPDs) such asfield-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and the like; programmable logicdevices (PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs(HCPLDs), and the like; ASICs such as structured ASICs and the like;programmable SoCs (PSoCs); and the like. In such implementations, thecircuitry of application circuitry 605 may comprise logic blocks orlogic fabric, and other interconnected resources that may be programmedto perform various functions, such as the procedures, methods,functions, etc. of the various embodiments discussed herein. In suchembodiments, the circuitry of application circuitry 605 may includememory cells (e.g., erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), flashmemory, static memory (e.g., static random access memory (SRAM),anti-fuses, etc.)) used to store logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc.in look-up-tables (LUTs) and the like.

The baseband circuitry 610 may be implemented, for example, as asolder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, asingle packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or amulti-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Thevarious hardware electronic elements of baseband circuitry 610 arediscussed infra with regard to FIG. 8.

User interface circuitry 650 may include one or more user interfacesdesigned to enable user interaction with the system 600 or peripheralcomponent interfaces designed to enable peripheral component interactionwith the system 600. User interfaces may include, but are not limitedto, one or more physical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), oneor more indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)), a physicalkeyboard or keypad, a mouse, a touchpad, a touchscreen, speakers orother audio emitting devices, microphones, a printer, a scanner, aheadset, a display screen or display device, etc. Peripheral componentinterfaces may include, but are not limited to, a nonvolatile memoryport, a universal serial bus (USB) port, an audio jack, a power supplyinterface, etc.

The radio front end modules (RFEMs) 615 may comprise a millimeter wave(mmWave) RFEM and one or more sub-mmWave radio frequency integratedcircuits (RFICs). In some implementations, the one or more sub-mmWaveRFICs may be physically separated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs mayinclude connections to one or more antennas or antenna arrays (see e.g.,antenna array 811 of FIG. 8 infra), and the RFEM may be connected tomultiple antennas. In alternative implementations, both mmWave andsub-mmWave radio functions may be implemented in the same physical RFEM615, which incorporates both mmWave antennas and sub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry 620 may include one or more of volatile memoryincluding dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and/or synchronous dynamicrandom access memory (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM) includinghigh-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flashmemory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistiverandom access memory (MRAM), etc., and may incorporate thethree-dimensional (3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® andMicron®. Memory circuitry 620 may be implemented as one or more ofsolder down packaged integrated circuits, socketed memory modules andplug-in memory cards.

The PMIC 625 may include voltage regulators, surge protectors, poweralarm detection circuitry, and one or more backup power sources such asa battery or capacitor. The power alarm detection circuitry may detectone or more of brown out (under-voltage) and surge (over-voltage)conditions. The power tee circuitry 630 may provide for electrical powerdrawn from a network cable to provide both power supply and dataconnectivity to the infrastructure equipment 600 using a single cable.

The network controller circuitry 635 may provide connectivity to anetwork using a standard network interface protocol such as Ethernet,Ethernet over GRE Tunnels, Ethernet over Multiprotocol Label Switching(MPLS), or some other suitable protocol. Network connectivity may beprovided to/from the infrastructure equipment 600 via network interfaceconnector 640 using a physical connection, which may be electrical(commonly referred to as a “copper interconnect”), optical, or wireless.The network controller circuitry 635 may include one or more dedicatedprocessors and/or FPGAs to communicate using one or more of theaforementioned protocols. In some implementations, the networkcontroller circuitry 635 may include multiple controllers to provideconnectivity to other networks using the same or different protocols.

The positioning circuitry 645 includes circuitry to receive and decodesignals transmitted/broadcasted by a positioning network of a globalnavigation satellite system (GNSS). Examples of navigation satelliteconstellations (or GNSS) include United States' Global PositioningSystem (GPS), Russia's Global Navigation System (GLONASS), the EuropeanUnion's Galileo system, China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, aregional navigation system or GNSS augmentation system (e.g., Navigationwith Indian Constellation (NAVIC), Japan's Quasi-Zenith Satellite System(QZSS), France's Doppler Orbitography and Radio-positioning Integratedby Satellite (DORIS), etc.), or the like. The positioning circuitry 645comprises various hardware elements (e.g., including hardware devicessuch as switches, filters, amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like tofacilitate OTA communications) to communicate with components of apositioning network, such as navigation satellite constellation nodes.In some embodiments, the positioning circuitry 645 may include aMicro-Technology for Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (Micro-PNT) ICthat uses a master timing clock to perform position tracking/estimationwithout GNSS assistance. The positioning circuitry 645 may also be partof, or interact with, the baseband circuitry 610 and/or RFEMs 615 tocommunicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network.The positioning circuitry 645 may also provide position data and/or timedata to the application circuitry 605, which may use the data tosynchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., RAN nodes 511,etc.), or the like.

The components shown by FIG. 6 may communicate with one another usinginterface circuitry, which may include any number of bus and/orinterconnect (IX) technologies such as industry standard architecture(ISA), extended ISA (EISA), peripheral component interconnect (PCI),peripheral component interconnect extended (PCIx), PCI express (PCIe),or any number of other technologies. The bus/IX may be a proprietarybus, for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus/IX systems maybe included, such as an I²C interface, an SPI interface, point to pointinterfaces, and a power bus, among others.

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a platform 700 (or “device 700”) inaccordance with various embodiments. In embodiments, the computerplatform 700 may be suitable for use as UEs 501, 1301, 1401, applicationservers 530, and/or any other element/device discussed herein. Theplatform 700 may include any combinations of the components shown in theexample. The components of platform 700 may be implemented as integratedcircuits (ICs), portions thereof, discrete electronic devices, or othermodules, logic, hardware, software, firmware, or a combination thereofadapted in the computer platform 700, or as components otherwiseincorporated within a chassis of a larger system. The block diagram ofFIG. 7 is intended to show a high level view of components of thecomputer platform 700. However, some of the components shown may beomitted, additional components may be present, and different arrangementof the components shown may occur in other implementations.

Application circuitry 705 includes circuitry such as, but not limited toone or more processors (or processor cores), cache memory, and one ormore of LDOs, interrupt controllers, serial interfaces such as SPI, I²Cor universal programmable serial interface module, RTC, timer-countersincluding interval and watchdog timers, general purpose I/O, memory cardcontrollers such as SD MMC or similar, USB interfaces, MIPI interfaces,and JTAG test access ports. The processors (or cores) of the applicationcircuitry 705 may be coupled with or may include memory/storage elementsand may be configured to execute instructions stored in thememory/storage to enable various applications or operating systems torun on the system 700. In some implementations, the memory/storageelements may be on-chip memory circuitry, which may include any suitablevolatile and/or non-volatile memory, such as DRAM, SRAM, EPROM, EEPROM,Flash memory, solid-state memory, and/or any other type of memory devicetechnology, such as those discussed herein.

The processor(s) of application circuitry 605 may include, for example,one or more processor cores, one or more application processors, one ormore GPUs, one or more RISC processors, one or more ARM processors, oneor more CISC processors, one or more DSP, one or more FPGAs, one or morePLDs, one or more ASICs, one or more microprocessors or controllers, amultithreaded processor, an ultra-low voltage processor, an embeddedprocessor, some other known processing element, or any suitablecombination thereof. In some embodiments, the application circuitry 605may comprise, or may be, a special-purpose processor/controller tooperate according to the various embodiments herein.

As examples, the processor(s) of application circuitry 705 may includean Intel® Architecture Core™ based processor, such as a Quark™, anAtom™, an i3, an i5, an i7, or an MCU-class processor, or another suchprocessor available from Intel® Corporation, Santa Clara, Calif. Theprocessors of the application circuitry 705 may also be one or more ofAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD) Ryzen® processor(s) or AcceleratedProcessing Units (APUs); A5-A9 processor(s) from Apple® Inc.,Snapdragon™ processor(s) from Qualcomm® Technologies, Inc., TexasInstruments, Inc.® Open Multimedia Applications Platform (OMAP)™processor(s); a MIPS-based design from MIPS Technologies, Inc. such asMIPS Warrior M-class, Warrior I-class, and Warrior P-class processors;an ARM-based design licensed from ARM Holdings, Ltd., such as the ARMCortex-A, Cortex-R, and Cortex-M family of processors; or the like. Insome implementations, the application circuitry 705 may be a part of asystem on a chip (SoC) in which the application circuitry 705 and othercomponents are formed into a single integrated circuit, or a singlepackage, such as the Edison™ or Galileo™ SoC boards from Intel®Corporation.

Additionally or alternatively, application circuitry 705 may includecircuitry such as, but not limited to, one or more a field-programmabledevices (FPDs) such as FPGAs and the like; programmable logic devices(PLDs) such as complex PLDs (CPLDs), high-capacity PLDs (HCPLDs), andthe like; ASICs such as structured ASICs and the like; programmable SoCs(PSoCs); and the like. In such embodiments, the circuitry of applicationcircuitry 705 may comprise logic blocks or logic fabric, and otherinterconnected resources that may be programmed to perform variousfunctions, such as the procedures, methods, functions, etc. of thevarious embodiments discussed herein. In such embodiments, the circuitryof application circuitry 705 may include memory cells (e.g., erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EEPROM), flash memory, static memory(e.g., static random access memory (SRAM), anti-fuses, etc.)) used tostore logic blocks, logic fabric, data, etc. in look-up tables (LUTs)and the like.

The baseband circuitry 710 may be implemented, for example, as asolder-down substrate including one or more integrated circuits, asingle packaged integrated circuit soldered to a main circuit board or amulti-chip module containing two or more integrated circuits. Thevarious hardware electronic elements of baseband circuitry 710 arediscussed infra with regard to FIG. 8.

The RFEMs 715 may comprise a millimeter wave (mmWave) RFEM and one ormore sub-mmWave radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). In someimplementations, the one or more sub-mmWave RFICs may be physicallyseparated from the mmWave RFEM. The RFICs may include connections to oneor more antennas or antenna arrays (see e.g., antenna array 811 of FIG.8 infra), and the RFEM may be connected to multiple antennas. Inalternative implementations, both mmWave and sub-mmWave radio functionsmay be implemented in the same physical RFEM 715, which incorporatesboth mmWave antennas and sub-mmWave.

The memory circuitry 720 may include any number and type of memorydevices used to provide for a given amount of system memory. Asexamples, the memory circuitry 720 may include one or more of volatilememory including random access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM) and/orsynchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM), and nonvolatile memory (NVM) includinghigh-speed electrically erasable memory (commonly referred to as Flashmemory), phase change random access memory (PRAM), magnetoresistiverandom access memory (MRAM), etc. The memory circuitry 720 may bedeveloped in accordance with a Joint Electron Devices EngineeringCouncil (JEDEC) low power double data rate (LPDDR)-based design, such asLPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4, or the like. Memory circuitry 720 may beimplemented as one or more of solder down packaged integrated circuits,single die package (SDP), dual die package (DDP) or quad die package(Q17P), socketed memory modules, dual inline memory modules (DIMMs)including microDlMMs or MiniDIMMs, and/or soldered onto a motherboardvia a ball grid array (BGA). In low power implementations, the memorycircuitry 720 may be on-die memory or registers associated with theapplication circuitry 705. To provide for persistent storage ofinformation such as data, applications, operating systems and so forth,memory circuitry 720 may include one or more mass storage devices, whichmay include, inter alia, a solid state disk drive (SSDD), hard diskdrive (HDD), a micro HDD, resistance change memories, phase changememories, holographic memories, or chemical memories, among others. Forexample, the computer platform 700 may incorporate the three-dimensional(3D) cross-point (XPOINT) memories from Intel® and Micron®.

Removable memory circuitry 723 may include devices, circuitry,enclosures/housings, ports or receptacles, etc. used to couple portabledata storage devices with the platform 700. These portable data storagedevices may be used for mass storage purposes, and may include, forexample, flash memory cards (e.g., Secure Digital (SD) cards, microSDcards, xD picture cards, and the like), and USB flash drives, opticaldiscs, external HDDs, and the like.

The platform 700 may also include interface circuitry (not shown) thatis used to connect external devices with the platform 700. The externaldevices connected to the platform 700 via the interface circuitryinclude sensor circuitry 721 and electro-mechanical components (EMCs)722, as well as removable memory devices coupled to removable memorycircuitry 723.

The sensor circuitry 721 include devices, modules, or subsystems whosepurpose is to detect events or changes in its environment and send theinformation (sensor data) about the detected events to some other adevice, module, subsystem, etc. Examples of such sensors include, interalia, inertia measurement units (IMUs) comprising accelerometers,gyroscopes, and/or magnetometers; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)or nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) comprising 3-axisaccelerometers, 3-axis gyroscopes, and/or magnetometers; level sensors;flow sensors; temperature sensors (e.g., thermistors); pressure sensors;barometric pressure sensors; gravimeters; altimeters; image capturedevices (e.g., cameras or lensless apertures); light detection andranging (LiDAR) sensors; proximity sensors (e.g., infrared radiationdetector and the like), depth sensors, ambient light sensors, ultrasonictransceivers; microphones or other like audio capture devices; etc.

EMCs 722 include devices, modules, or subsystems whose purpose is toenable platform 700 to change its state, position, and/or orientation,or move or control a mechanism or (sub)system. Additionally, EMCs 722may be configured to generate and send messages/signalling to othercomponents of the platform 700 to indicate a current state of the EMCs722. Examples of the EMCs 722 include one or more power switches, relaysincluding electromechanical relays (EMRs) and/or solid state relays(SSRs), actuators (e.g., valve actuators, etc.), an audible soundgenerator, a visual warning device, motors (e.g., DC motors, steppermotors, etc.), wheels, thrusters, propellers, claws, clamps, hooks,and/or other like electro-mechanical components. In embodiments,platform 700 is configured to operate one or more EMCs 722 based on oneor more captured events and/or instructions or control signals receivedfrom a service provider and/or various clients.

In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect theplatform 700 with positioning circuitry 745. The positioning circuitry745 includes circuitry to receive and decode signalstransmitted/broadcasted by a positioning network of a GNSS. Examples ofnavigation satellite constellations (or GNSS) include United States'GPS, Russia's GLONASS, the European Union's Galileo system, China'sBeiDou Navigation Satellite System, a regional navigation system or GNSSaugmentation system (e.g., NAVIC), Japan's QZSS, France's DORIS, etc.),or the like. The positioning circuitry 745 comprises various hardwareelements (e.g., including hardware devices such as switches, filters,amplifiers, antenna elements, and the like to facilitate OTAcommunications) to communicate with components of a positioning network,such as navigation satellite constellation nodes. In some embodiments,the positioning circuitry 745 may include a Micro-PNT IC that uses amaster timing clock to perform position tracking/estimation without GNSSassistance. The positioning circuitry 745 may also be part of, orinteract with, the baseband circuitry 610 and/or RFEMs 715 tocommunicate with the nodes and components of the positioning network.The positioning circuitry 745 may also provide position data and/or timedata to the application circuitry 705, which may use the data tosynchronize operations with various infrastructure (e.g., radio basestations), for turn-by-turn navigation applications, or the like.

In some implementations, the interface circuitry may connect theplatform 700 with Near-Field Communication (NFC) circuitry 740. NFCcircuitry 740 is configured to provide contactless, short-rangecommunications based on radio frequency identification (RFID) standards,wherein magnetic field induction is used to enable communication betweenNFC circuitry 740 and NFC-enabled devices external to the platform 700(e.g., an “NFC touchpoint”). NFC circuitry 740 comprises an NFCcontroller coupled with an antenna element and a processor coupled withthe NFC controller. The NFC controller may be a chip/IC providing NFCfunctionalities to the NFC circuitry 740 by executing NFC controllerfirmware and an NFC stack. The NFC stack may be executed by theprocessor to control the NFC controller, and the NFC controller firmwaremay be executed by the NFC controller to control the antenna element toemit short-range RF signals. The RF signals may power a passive NFC tag(e.g., a microchip embedded in a sticker or wristband) to transmitstored data to the NFC circuitry 740, or initiate data transfer betweenthe NFC circuitry 740 and another active NFC device (e.g., a smartphoneor an NFC-enabled POS terminal) that is proximate to the platform 700.

The driver circuitry 746 may include software and hardware elements thatoperate to control particular devices that are embedded in the platform700, attached to the platform 700, or otherwise communicatively coupledwith the platform 700. The driver circuitry 746 may include individualdrivers allowing other components of the platform 700 to interact withor control various input/output (I/O) devices that may be presentwithin, or connected to, the platform 700. For example, driver circuitry746 may include a display driver to control and allow access to adisplay device, a touchscreen driver to control and allow access to atouchscreen interface of the platform 700, sensor drivers to obtainsensor readings of sensor circuitry 721 and control and allow access tosensor circuitry 721, EMC drivers to obtain actuator positions of theEMCs 722 and/or control and allow access to the EMCs 722, a cameradriver to control and allow access to an embedded image capture device,audio drivers to control and allow access to one or more audio devices.

The power management integrated circuitry (PMIC) 725 (also referred toas “power management circuitry 725”) may manage power provided tovarious components of the platform 700. In particular, with respect tothe baseband circuitry 710, the PMIC 725 may control power-sourceselection, voltage scaling, battery charging, or DC-to-DC conversion.The PMIC 725 may often be included when the platform 700 is capable ofbeing powered by a battery 730, for example, when the device is includedin a UE 501, 1301, 1401.

In some embodiments, the PMIC 725 may control, or otherwise be part of,various power saving mechanisms of the platform 700. For example, if theplatform 700 is in an RRC_Connected state, where it is still connectedto the RAN node as it expects to receive traffic shortly, then it mayenter a state known as Discontinuous Reception Mode (DRX) after a periodof inactivity. During this state, the platform 700 may power down forbrief intervals of time and thus save power. If there is no data trafficactivity for an extended period of time, then the platform 700 maytransition off to an RRC Idle state, where it disconnects from thenetwork and does not perform operations such as channel qualityfeedback, handover, etc. The platform 700 goes into a very low powerstate and it performs paging where again it periodically wakes up tolisten to the network and then powers down again. The platform 700 maynot receive data in this state; in order to receive data, it musttransition back to RRC_Connected state. An additional power saving modemay allow a device to be unavailable to the network for periods longerthan a paging interval (ranging from seconds to a few hours). Duringthis time, the device is totally unreachable to the network and maypower down completely. Any data sent during this time incurs a largedelay and it is assumed the delay is acceptable.

A battery 730 may power the platform 700, although in some examples theplatform 700 may be mounted deployed in a fixed location, and may have apower supply coupled to an electrical grid. The battery 730 may be alithium ion battery, a metal-air battery, such as a zinc-air battery, analuminum-air battery, a lithium-air battery, and the like. In someimplementations, such as in V2X applications, the battery 730 may be atypical lead-acid automotive battery.

In some implementations, the battery 730 may be a “smart battery,” whichincludes or is coupled with a Battery Management System (BMS) or batterymonitoring integrated circuitry. The BMS may be included in the platform700 to track the state of charge (SoCh) of the battery 730. The BMS maybe used to monitor other parameters of the battery 730 to providefailure predictions, such as the state of health (SoH) and the state offunction (SoF) of the battery 730. The BMS may communicate theinformation of the battery 730 to the application circuitry 705 or othercomponents of the platform 700. The BMS may also include ananalog-to-digital (ADC) convertor that allows the application circuitry705 to directly monitor the voltage of the battery 730 or the currentflow from the battery 730. The battery parameters may be used todetermine actions that the platform 700 may perform, such astransmission frequency, network operation, sensing frequency, and thelike.

A power block, or other power supply coupled to an electrical grid maybe coupled with the BMS to charge the battery 730. In some examples, thepower block 725 may be replaced with a wireless power receiver to obtainthe power wirelessly, for example, through a loop antenna in thecomputer platform 700. In these examples, a wireless battery chargingcircuit may be included in the BMS. The specific charging circuitschosen may depend on the size of the battery 730, and thus, the currentrequired. The charging may be performed using the Airfuel standardpromulgated by the Airfuel Alliance, the Qi wireless charging standardpromulgated by the Wireless Power Consortium, or the Rezence chargingstandard promulgated by the Alliance for Wireless Power, among others.

User interface circuitry 750 includes various input/output (I/O) devicespresent within, or connected to, the platform 700, and includes one ormore user interfaces designed to enable user interaction with theplatform 700 and/or peripheral component interfaces designed to enableperipheral component interaction with the platform 700. The userinterface circuitry 750 includes input device circuitry and outputdevice circuitry. Input device circuitry includes any physical orvirtual means for accepting an input including, inter alia, one or morephysical or virtual buttons (e.g., a reset button), a physical keyboard,keypad, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, microphones, scanner, headset,and/or the like. The output device circuitry includes any physical orvirtual means for showing information or otherwise conveyinginformation, such as sensor readings, actuator position(s), or otherlike information. Output device circuitry may include any number and/orcombinations of audio or visual display, including, inter alia, one ormore simple visual outputs/indicators (e.g., binary status indicators(e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs)) and multi-character visual outputs,or more complex outputs such as display devices or touchscreens (e.g.,Liquid Chrystal Displays (LCD), LED displays, quantum dot displays,projectors, etc.), with the output of characters, graphics, multimediaobjects, and the like being generated or produced from the operation ofthe platform 700. The output device circuitry may also include speakersor other audio emitting devices, printer(s), and/or the like. In someembodiments, the sensor circuitry 721 may be used as the input devicecircuitry (e.g., an image capture device, motion capture device, or thelike) and one or more EMCs may be used as the output device circuitry(e.g., an actuator to provide haptic feedback or the like). In anotherexample, NFC circuitry comprising an NFC controller coupled with anantenna element and a processing device may be included to readelectronic tags and/or connect with another NFC-enabled device.Peripheral component interfaces may include, but are not limited to, anon-volatile memory port, a USB port, an audio jack, a power supplyinterface, etc.

Although not shown, the components of platform 700 may communicate withone another using a suitable bus or interconnect (IX) technology, whichmay include any number of technologies, including ISA, EISA, PCI, PCIx,PCIe, a Time-Trigger Protocol (TTP) system, a FlexRay system, or anynumber of other technologies. The bus/IX may be a proprietary bus/IX,for example, used in a SoC based system. Other bus/IX systems may beincluded, such as an I²C interface, an SPI interface, point-to-pointinterfaces, and a power bus, among others.

FIG. 8 illustrates example components of baseband circuitry 810 andradio front end modules (RFEM) 815 in accordance with variousembodiments. The baseband circuitry 810 corresponds to the basebandcircuitry 610 and 710 of FIGS. 6 and 7, respectively. The RFEM 815corresponds to the RFEM 615 and 715 of FIGS. 6 and 7, respectively. Asshown, the RFEMs 815 may include Radio Frequency (RF) circuitry 806,front-end module (FEM) circuitry 808, antenna array 811 coupled togetherat least as shown.

The baseband circuitry 810 includes circuitry and/or control logicconfigured to carry out various radio/network protocol and radio controlfunctions that enable communication with one or more radio networks viathe RF circuitry 806. The radio control functions may include, but arenot limited to, signal modulation/demodulation, encoding/decoding, radiofrequency shifting, etc. In some embodiments, modulation/demodulationcircuitry of the baseband circuitry 810 may include Fast-FourierTransform (FFT), precoding, or constellation mapping/demappingfunctionality. In some embodiments, encoding/decoding circuitry of thebaseband circuitry 810 may include convolution, tail-biting convolution,turbo, Viterbi, or Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) encoder/decoderfunctionality. Embodiments of modulation/demodulation andencoder/decoder functionality are not limited to these examples and mayinclude other suitable functionality in other embodiments. The basebandcircuitry 810 is configured to process baseband signals received from areceive signal path of the RF circuitry 806 and to generate basebandsignals for a transmit signal path of the RF circuitry 806. The basebandcircuitry 810 is configured to interface with application circuitry605/705 (see FIGS. 6 and 7) for generation and processing of thebaseband signals and for controlling operations of the RF circuitry 806.The baseband circuitry 810 may handle various radio control functions.

The aforementioned circuitry and/or control logic of the basebandcircuitry 810 may include one or more single or multi-core processors.For example, the one or more processors may include a 3G basebandprocessor 804A, a 4G/LTE baseband processor 804B, a 5G/NR basebandprocessor 804C, or some other baseband processor(s) 804D for otherexisting generations, generations in development or to be developed inthe future (e.g., sixth generation (6G), etc.). In other embodiments,some or all of the functionality of baseband processors 804A-D may beincluded in modules stored in the memory 804G and executed via a CentralProcessing Unit (CPU) 804E. In other embodiments, some or all of thefunctionality of baseband processors 804A-D may be provided as hardwareaccelerators (e.g., FPGAs, ASICs, etc.) loaded with the appropriate bitstreams or logic blocks stored in respective memory cells. In variousembodiments, the memory 804G may store program code of a real-time OS(RTOS), which when executed by the CPU 804E (or other basebandprocessor), is to cause the CPU 804E (or other baseband processor) tomanage resources of the baseband circuitry 810, schedule tasks, etc.Examples of the RTOS may include Operating System Embedded (OSE)™provided by Enea®, Nucleus RTOS™ provided by Mentor Graphics®, VersatileReal-Time Executive (VRTX) provided by Mentor Graphics®, ThreadX™provided by Express Logic®, FreeRTOS, REX OS provided by Qualcomm®, OKL4provided by Open Kernel (OK) Labs®, or any other suitable RTOS, such asthose discussed herein. In addition, the baseband circuitry 810 includesone or more audio digital signal processor(s) (DSP) 804F. The audioDSP(s) 804F include elements for compression/decompression and echocancellation and may include other suitable processing elements in otherembodiments.

In some embodiments, each of the processors 804A-804E include respectivememory interfaces to send/receive data to/from the memory 804G. Thebaseband circuitry 810 may further include one or more interfaces tocommunicatively couple to other circuitries/devices, such as aninterface to send/receive data to/from memory external to the basebandcircuitry 810; an application circuitry interface to send/receive datato/from the application circuitry 605/705 of FIGS. 6-7); an RF circuitryinterface to send/receive data to/from RF circuitry 806 of FIG. 8; awireless hardware connectivity interface to send/receive data to/fromone or more wireless hardware elements (e.g., Near Field Communication(NFC) components, Bluetooth®/Bluetooth® Low Energy components, Wi-Fi®components, and/or the like); and a power management interface tosend/receive power or control signals to/from the PMIC 725.

In alternate embodiments (which may be combined with the above describedembodiments), baseband circuitry 810 comprises one or more digitalbaseband systems, which are coupled with one another via an interconnectsubsystem and to a CPU subsystem, an audio subsystem, and an interfacesubsystem. The digital baseband subsystems may also be coupled to adigital baseband interface and a mixed-signal baseband subsystem viaanother interconnect subsystem. Each of the interconnect subsystems mayinclude a bus system, point-to-point connections, network-on-chip (NOC)structures, and/or some other suitable bus or interconnect technology,such as those discussed herein. The audio subsystem may include DSPcircuitry, buffer memory, program memory, speech processing acceleratorcircuitry, data converter circuitry such as analog-to-digital anddigital-to-analog converter circuitry, analog circuitry including one ormore of amplifiers and filters, and/or other like components. In anaspect of the present disclosure, baseband circuitry 810 may includeprotocol processing circuitry with one or more instances of controlcircuitry (not shown) to provide control functions for the digitalbaseband circuitry and/or radio frequency circuitry (e.g., the radiofront end modules 815).

Although not shown by FIG. 8, in some embodiments, the basebandcircuitry 810 includes individual processing device(s) to operate one ormore wireless communication protocols (e.g., a “multi-protocol basebandprocessor” or “protocol processing circuitry”) and individual processingdevice(s) to implement PHY layer functions. In these embodiments, thePHY layer functions include the aforementioned radio control functions.In these embodiments, the protocol processing circuitry operates orimplements various protocol layers/entities of one or more wirelesscommunication protocols. In a first example, the protocol processingcircuitry may operate LTE protocol entities and/or 5G/NR protocolentities when the baseband circuitry 810 and/or RF circuitry 806 arepart of mmWave communication circuitry or some other suitable cellularcommunication circuitry. In the first example, the protocol processingcircuitry would operate MAC, RLC, PDCP, SDAP, RRC, and NAS functions. Ina second example, the protocol processing circuitry may operate one ormore IEEE-based protocols when the baseband circuitry 810 and/or RFcircuitry 806 are part of a Wi-Fi communication system. In the secondexample, the protocol processing circuitry would operate Wi-Fi MAC andlogical link control (LLC) functions. The protocol processing circuitrymay include one or more memory structures (e.g., 804G) to store programcode and data for operating the protocol functions, as well as one ormore processing cores to execute the program code and perform variousoperations using the data. The baseband circuitry 810 may also supportradio communications for more than one wireless protocol.

The various hardware elements of the baseband circuitry 810 discussedherein may be implemented, for example, as a solder-down substrateincluding one or more integrated circuits (ICs), a single packaged ICsoldered to a main circuit board or a multi-chip module containing twoor more ICs. In one example, the components of the baseband circuitry810 may be suitably combined in a single chip or chipset, or disposed ona same circuit board. In another example, some or all of the constituentcomponents of the baseband circuitry 810 and RF circuitry 806 may beimplemented together such as, for example, a system on a chip (SoC) orSystem-in-Package (SiP). In another example, some or all of theconstituent components of the baseband circuitry 810 may be implementedas a separate SoC that is communicatively coupled with and RF circuitry806 (or multiple instances of RF circuitry 806). In yet another example,some or all of the constituent components of the baseband circuitry 810and the application circuitry 605/705 may be implemented together asindividual SoCs mounted to a same circuit board (e.g., a “multi-chippackage”).

In some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 810 may provide forcommunication compatible with one or more radio technologies. Forexample, in some embodiments, the baseband circuitry 810 may supportcommunication with an E-UTRAN or other WMAN, a WLAN, a WPAN. Embodimentsin which the baseband circuitry 810 is configured to support radiocommunications of more than one wireless protocol may be referred to asmulti-mode baseband circuitry.

RF circuitry 806 may enable communication with wireless networks usingmodulated electromagnetic radiation through a non-solid medium. Invarious embodiments, the RF circuitry 806 may include switches, filters,amplifiers, etc. to facilitate the communication with the wirelessnetwork. RF circuitry 806 may include a receive signal path, which mayinclude circuitry to down-convert RF signals received from the FEMcircuitry 808 and provide baseband signals to the baseband circuitry810. RF circuitry 806 may also include a transmit signal path, which mayinclude circuitry to up-convert baseband signals provided by thebaseband circuitry 810 and provide RF output signals to the FEMcircuitry 808 for transmission.

In some embodiments, the receive signal path of the RF circuitry 806 mayinclude mixer circuitry 806 a, amplifier circuitry 806 b and filtercircuitry 806 c. In some embodiments, the transmit signal path of the RFcircuitry 806 may include filter circuitry 806 c and mixer circuitry 806a. RF circuitry 806 may also include synthesizer circuitry 806 d forsynthesizing a frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 806 a of thereceive signal path and the transmit signal path. In some embodiments,the mixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signal path may be configuredto down-convert RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 808 based onthe synthesized frequency provided by synthesizer circuitry 806 d. Theamplifier circuitry 806 b may be configured to amplify thedown-converted signals and the filter circuitry 806 c may be a low-passfilter (LPF) or band-pass filter (BPF) configured to remove unwantedsignals from the down-converted signals to generate output basebandsignals. Output baseband signals may be provided to the basebandcircuitry 810 for further processing. In some embodiments, the outputbaseband signals may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although thisis not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 806 a of thereceive signal path may comprise passive mixers, although the scope ofthe embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 806 a of the transmit signalpath may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals based on thesynthesized frequency provided by the synthesizer circuitry 806 d togenerate RF output signals for the FEM circuitry 808. The basebandsignals may be provided by the baseband circuitry 810 and may befiltered by filter circuitry 806 c.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signalpath and the mixer circuitry 806 a of the transmit signal path mayinclude two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadraturedownconversion and upconversion, respectively. In some embodiments, themixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signal path and the mixer circuitry806 a of the transmit signal path may include two or more mixers and maybe arranged for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In someembodiments, the mixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signal path andthe mixer circuitry 806 a of the transmit signal path may be arrangedfor direct downconversion and direct upconversion, respectively. In someembodiments, the mixer circuitry 806 a of the receive signal path andthe mixer circuitry 806 a of the transmit signal path may be configuredfor super-heterodyne operation.

In some embodiments, the output baseband signals and the input basebandsignals may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of theembodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternateembodiments, the output baseband signals and the input baseband signalsmay be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the RFcircuitry 806 may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) anddigital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry and the baseband circuitry810 may include a digital baseband interface to communicate with the RFcircuitry 806.

In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may beprovided for processing signals for each spectrum, although the scope ofthe embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 806 d may be afractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer, although thescope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other typesof frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizercircuitry 806 d may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequencymultiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with afrequency divider.

The synthesizer circuitry 806 d may be configured to synthesize anoutput frequency for use by the mixer circuitry 806 a of the RFcircuitry 806 based on a frequency input and a divider control input. Insome embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 806 d may be a fractionalN/N+1 synthesizer.

In some embodiments, frequency input may be provided by a voltagecontrolled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. Dividercontrol input may be provided by either the baseband circuitry 810 orthe application circuitry 605/705 depending on the desired outputfrequency. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may bedetermined from a look-up table based on a channel indicated by theapplication circuitry 605/705.

Synthesizer circuitry 806 d of the RF circuitry 806 may include adivider, a delay-locked loop (DLL), a multiplexer and a phaseaccumulator. In some embodiments, the divider may be a dual modulusdivider (DMD) and the phase accumulator may be a digital phaseaccumulator (DPA). In some embodiments, the DMD may be configured todivide the input signal by either N or N+1 (e.g., based on a carry out)to provide a fractional division ratio. In some example embodiments, theDLL may include a set of cascaded, tunable, delay elements, a phasedetector, a charge pump and a D-type flip-flop. In these embodiments,the delay elements may be configured to break a VCO period up into Ndequal packets of phase, where Nd is the number of delay elements in thedelay line. In this way, the DLL provides negative feedback to helpensure that the total delay through the delay line is one VCO cycle.

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 806 d may be configured togenerate a carrier frequency as the output frequency, while in otherembodiments, the output frequency may be a multiple of the carrierfrequency (e.g., twice the carrier frequency, four times the carrierfrequency) and used in conjunction with quadrature generator and dividercircuitry to generate multiple signals at the carrier frequency withmultiple different phases with respect to each other. In someembodiments, the output frequency may be a LO frequency (fLO). In someembodiments, the RF circuitry 806 may include an IQ/polar converter.

FEM circuitry 808 may include a receive signal path, which may includecircuitry configured to operate on RF signals received from antennaarray 811, amplify the received signals and provide the amplifiedversions of the received signals to the RF circuitry 806 for furtherprocessing. FEM circuitry 808 may also include a transmit signal path,which may include circuitry configured to amplify signals fortransmission provided by the RF circuitry 806 for transmission by one ormore of antenna elements of antenna array 811. In various embodiments,the amplification through the transmit or receive signal paths may bedone solely in the RF circuitry 806, solely in the FEM circuitry 808, orin both the RF circuitry 806 and the FEM circuitry 808.

In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 808 may include a TX/RX switch toswitch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEMcircuitry 808 may include a receive signal path and a transmit signalpath. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 808 may include anLNA to amplify received RF signals and provide the amplified received RFsignals as an output (e.g., to the RF circuitry 806). The transmitsignal path of the FEM circuitry 808 may include a power amplifier (PA)to amplify input RF signals (e.g., provided by RF circuitry 806), andone or more filters to generate RF signals for subsequent transmissionby one or more antenna elements of the antenna array 811.

The antenna array 811 comprises one or more antenna elements, each ofwhich is configured convert electrical signals into radio waves totravel through the air and to convert received radio waves intoelectrical signals. For example, digital baseband signals provided bythe baseband circuitry 810 is converted into analog RF signals (e.g.,modulated waveform) that will be amplified and transmitted via theantenna elements of the antenna array 811 including one or more antennaelements (not shown). The antenna elements may be omnidirectional,direction, or a combination thereof. The antenna elements may be formedin a multitude of arranges as are known and/or discussed herein. Theantenna array 811 may comprise microstrip antennas or printed antennasthat are fabricated on the surface of one or more printed circuitboards. The antenna array 811 may be formed in as a patch of metal foil(e.g., a patch antenna) in a variety of shapes, and may be coupled withthe RF circuitry 806 and/or FEM circuitry 808 using metal transmissionlines or the like.

Processors of the application circuitry 605/705 and processors of thebaseband circuitry 810 may be used to execute elements of one or moreinstances of a protocol stack. For example, processors of the basebandcircuitry 810, alone or in combination, may be used execute Layer 3,Layer 2, or Layer 1 functionality, while processors of the applicationcircuitry 605/705 may utilize data (e.g., packet data) received fromthese layers and further execute Layer 4 functionality (e.g., TCP andUDP layers). As referred to herein, Layer 3 may comprise a RRC layer,described in further detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 2 maycomprise a MAC layer, an RLC layer, and a PDCP layer, described infurther detail below. As referred to herein, Layer 1 may comprise a PHYlayer of a UE/RAN node, described in further detail below.

FIG. 9 illustrates various protocol functions that may be implemented ina wireless communication device according to various embodiments. Inparticular, FIG. 9 includes an arrangement 900 showing interconnectionsbetween various protocol layers/entities. The following description ofFIG. 9 is provided for various protocol layers/entities that operate inconjunction with the 5G/NR system standards and LTE system standards,but some or all of the aspects of FIG. 9 may be applicable to otherwireless communication network systems as well.

The protocol layers of arrangement 900 may include one or more of PHY910, MAC 920, RLC 930, PDCP 940, SDAP 947, RRC 955, and NAS layer 957,in addition to other higher layer functions not illustrated. Theprotocol layers may include one or more service access points (e.g.,items 959, 956, 950, 949, 945, 935, 925, and 915 in FIG. 9) that mayprovide communication between two or more protocol layers.

The PHY 910 may transmit and receive physical layer signals 905 that maybe received from or transmitted to one or more other communicationdevices. The physical layer signals 905 may comprise one or morephysical channels, such as those discussed herein. The PHY 910 mayfurther perform link adaptation or adaptive modulation and coding (AMC),power control, cell search (e.g., for initial synchronization andhandover purposes), and other measurements used by higher layers, suchas the RRC 955. The PHY 910 may still further perform error detection onthe transport channels, forward error correction (FEC) coding/decodingof the transport channels, modulation/demodulation of physical channels,interleaving, rate matching, mapping onto physical channels, and MIMOantenna processing. In embodiments, an instance of PHY 910 may processrequests from and provide indications to an instance of MAC 920 via oneor more PHY-SAP 915. According to some embodiments, requests andindications communicated via PHY-SAP 915 may comprise one or moretransport channels.

Instance(s) of MAC 920 may process requests from, and provideindications to, an instance of RLC 930 via one or more MAC-SAPs 925.These requests and indications communicated via the MAC-SAP 925 maycomprise one or more logical channels. The MAC 920 may perform mappingbetween the logical channels and transport channels, multiplexing of MACSDUs from one or more logical channels onto TBs to be delivered to PHY910 via the transport channels, de-multiplexing MAC SDUs to one or morelogical channels from TBs delivered from the PHY 910 via transportchannels, multiplexing MAC SDUs onto TBs, scheduling informationreporting, error correction through HARQ, and logical channelprioritization.

Instance(s) of RLC 930 may process requests from and provide indicationsto an instance of PDCP 940 via one or more radio link control serviceaccess points (RLC-SAP) 935. These requests and indications communicatedvia RLC-SAP 935 may comprise one or more RLC channels. The RLC 930 mayoperate in a plurality of modes of operation, including: TransparentMode™, Unacknowledged Mode (UM), and Acknowledged Mode (AM). The RLC 930may execute transfer of upper layer protocol data units (PDUs), errorcorrection through automatic repeat request (ARQ) for AM data transfers,and concatenation, segmentation and reassembly of RLC SDUs for UM and AMdata transfers. The RLC 930 may also execute re-segmentation of RLC dataPDUs for AM data transfers, reorder RLC data PDUs for UM and AM datatransfers, detect duplicate data for UM and AM data transfers, discardRLC SDUs for UM and AM data transfers, detect protocol errors for AMdata transfers, and perform RLC re-establishment.

Instance(s) of PDCP 940 may process requests from and provideindications to instance(s) of RRC 955 and/or instance(s) of SDAP 947 viaone or more packet data convergence protocol service access points(PDCP-SAP) 945. These requests and indications communicated via PDCP-SAP945 may comprise one or more radio bearers. The PDCP 940 may executeheader compression and decompression of IP data, maintain PDCP SequenceNumbers (SNs), perform in-sequence delivery of upper layer PDUs atre-establishment of lower layers, eliminate duplicates of lower layerSDUs at re-establishment of lower layers for radio bearers mapped on RLCAM, cipher and decipher control plane data, perform integrity protectionand integrity verification of control plane data, control timer-baseddiscard of data, and perform security operations (e.g., ciphering,deciphering, integrity protection, integrity verification, etc.).

Instance(s) of SDAP 947 may process requests from and provideindications to one or more higher layer protocol entities via one ormore SDAP-SAP 949. These requests and indications communicated viaSDAP-SAP 949 may comprise one or more QoS flows. The SDAP 947 may mapQoS flows to DRBs, and vice versa, and may also mark QFIs in DL and ULpackets. A single SDAP entity 947 may be configured for an individualPDU session. In the UL direction, the NG-RAN 510 may control the mappingof QoS Flows to DRB(s) in two different ways, reflective mapping orexplicit mapping. For reflective mapping, the SDAP 947 of a UE 501 maymonitor the QFIs of the DL packets for each DRB, and may apply the samemapping for packets flowing in the UL direction. For a DRB, the SDAP 947of the UE 501 may map the UL packets belonging to the QoS flows(s)corresponding to the QoS flow ID(s) and PDU session observed in the DLpackets for that DRB. To enable reflective mapping, the NG-RAN 1410 maymark DL packets over the Uu interface with a QoS flow ID. The explicitmapping may involve the RRC 955 configuring the SDAP 947 with anexplicit QoS flow to DRB mapping rule, which may be stored and followedby the SDAP 947. In embodiments, the SDAP 947 may only be used in NRimplementations and may not be used in LTE implementations.

The RRC 955 may configure, via one or more management service accesspoints (M-SAP), aspects of one or more protocol layers, which mayinclude one or more instances of PHY 910, MAC 920, RLC 930, PDCP 940 andSDAP 947. In embodiments, an instance of RRC 955 may process requestsfrom and provide indications to one or more NAS entities 957 via one ormore RRC-SAPs 956. The main services and functions of the RRC 955 mayinclude broadcast of system information (e.g., included in MIBs or SIBsrelated to the NAS), broadcast of system information related to theaccess stratum (AS), paging, establishment, maintenance and release ofan RRC connection between the UE 501 and RAN 510 (e.g., RRC connectionpaging, RRC connection establishment, RRC connection modification, andRRC connection release), establishment, configuration, maintenance andrelease of point to point Radio Bearers, security functions includingkey management, inter-RAT mobility, and measurement configuration for UEmeasurement reporting. The MIBs and SIBs may comprise one or more IEs,which may each comprise individual data fields or data structures.

The NAS 957 may form the highest stratum of the control plane betweenthe UE 501 and the AMF 1421. The NAS 957 may support the mobility of theUEs 501 and the session management procedures to establish and maintainIP connectivity between the UE 501 and a P-GW in LTE systems.

According to various embodiments, one or more protocol entities ofarrangement 900 may be implemented in UEs 501, RAN nodes 511, AMF 1421in NR implementations or MME 1321 in LTE implementations, UPF 1402 in NRimplementations or S-GW 1322 and P-GW 1323 in LTE implementations, orthe like to be used for control plane or user plane communicationsprotocol stack between the aforementioned devices. In such embodiments,one or more protocol entities that may be implemented in one or more ofUE 501, gNB 511, AMF 1421, etc. may communicate with a respective peerprotocol entity that may be implemented in or on another device usingthe services of respective lower layer protocol entities to perform suchcommunication. In some embodiments, a gNB-CU of the gNB 511 may host theRRC 955, SDAP 947, and PDCP 940 of the gNB that controls the operationof one or more gNB-DUs, and the gNB-DUs of the gNB 511 may each host theRLC 930, MAC 920, and PHY 910 of the gNB 511.

In a first example, a control plane protocol stack may comprise, inorder from highest layer to lowest layer, NAS 957, RRC 955, PDCP 940,RLC 930, MAC 920, and PHY 910. In this example, upper layers 960 may bebuilt on top of the NAS 957, which includes an IP layer 961, an SCTP962, and an application layer signaling protocol (AP) 963.

In NR implementations, the AP 963 may be an NG application protocollayer (NGAP or NG-AP) 963 for the NG interface 513 defined between theNG-RAN node 511 and the AMF 1421, or the AP 963 may be an Xn applicationprotocol layer (XnAP or Xn-AP) 963 for the Xn interface 512 that isdefined between two or more RAN nodes 511.

The NG-AP 963 may support the functions of the NG interface 513 and maycomprise Elementary Procedures (EPs). An NG-AP EP may be a unit ofinteraction between the NG-RAN node 511 and the AMF 1421. The NG-AP 963services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services (e.g., servicesrelated to a UE 501) and non-UE-associated services (e.g., servicesrelated to the whole NG interface instance between the NG-RAN node 511and AMF 1421). These services may include functions including, but notlimited to: a paging function for the sending of paging requests toNG-RAN nodes 511 involved in a particular paging area; a UE contextmanagement function for allowing the AMF 1421 to establish, modify,and/or release a UE context in the AMF 1421 and the NG-RAN node 511; amobility function for UEs 501 in ECM-CONNECTED mode for intra-system HOsto support mobility within NG-RAN and inter-system HOs to supportmobility from/to EPS systems; a NAS Signaling Transport function fortransporting or rerouting NAS messages between UE 501 and AMF 1421; aNAS node selection function for determining an association between theAMF 1421 and the UE 501; NG interface management function(s) for settingup the NG interface and monitoring for errors over the NG interface; awarning message transmission function for providing means to transferwarning messages via NG interface or cancel ongoing broadcast of warningmessages; a Configuration Transfer function for requesting andtransferring of RAN configuration information (e.g., SON information,performance measurement (PM) data, etc.) between two RAN nodes 511 viaCN 520; and/or other like functions.

The XnAP 963 may support the functions of the Xn interface 512 and maycomprise XnAP basic mobility procedures and XnAP global procedures. TheXnAP basic mobility procedures may comprise procedures used to handle UEmobility within the NG RAN 511 (or E-UTRAN 1310), such as handoverpreparation and cancellation procedures, SN Status Transfer procedures,UE context retrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN pagingprocedures, dual connectivity related procedures, and the like. The XnAPglobal procedures may comprise procedures that are not related to aspecific UE 501, such as Xn interface setup and reset procedures, NG-RANupdate procedures, cell activation procedures, and the like.

In LTE implementations, the AP 963 may be an S1 Application Protocollayer (S1-AP) 963 for the S1 interface 513 defined between an E-UTRANnode 511 and an MME, or the AP 963 may be an X2 application protocollayer (X2AP or X2-AP) 963 for the X2 interface 512 that is definedbetween two or more E-UTRAN nodes 511.

The S1 Application Protocol layer (S1-AP) 963 may support the functionsof the S1 interface, and similar to the NG-AP discussed previously, theS1-AP may comprise S1-AP EPs. An S1-AP EP may be a unit of interactionbetween the E-UTRAN node 511 and an MME 1321 within an LTE CN 520. TheS1-AP 963 services may comprise two groups: UE-associated services andnon UE-associated services. These services perform functions including,but not limited to: E-UTRAN Radio Access Bearer (E-RAB) management, UEcapability indication, mobility, NAS signaling transport, RANInformation Management (RIM), and configuration transfer.

The X2AP 963 may support the functions of the X2 interface 512 and maycomprise X2AP basic mobility procedures and X2AP global procedures. TheX2AP basic mobility procedures may comprise procedures used to handle UEmobility within the E-UTRAN 520, such as handover preparation andcancellation procedures, SN Status Transfer procedures, UE contextretrieval and UE context release procedures, RAN paging procedures, dualconnectivity related procedures, and the like. The X2AP globalprocedures may comprise procedures that are not related to a specific UE501, such as X2 interface setup and reset procedures, load indicationprocedures, error indication procedures, cell activation procedures, andthe like.

The SCTP layer (alternatively referred to as the SCTP/IP layer) 962 mayprovide guaranteed delivery of application layer messages (e.g., NGAP orXnAP messages in NR implementations, or S1-AP or X2AP messages in LTEimplementations). The SCTP 962 may ensure reliable delivery of signalingmessages between the RAN node 511 and the AMF 1421/MME 1321 based, inpart, on the IP protocol, supported by the IP 961. The Internet Protocollayer (IP) 961 may be used to perform packet addressing and routingfunctionality. In some implementations the IP layer 961 may usepoint-to-point transmission to deliver and convey PDUs. In this regard,the RAN node 511 may comprise L2 and L1 layer communication links (e.g.,wired or wireless) with the MME/AMF to exchange information.

In a second example, a user plane protocol stack may comprise, in orderfrom highest layer to lowest layer, SDAP 947, PDCP 940, RLC 930, MAC920, and PHY 910. The user plane protocol stack may be used forcommunication between the UE 501, the RAN node 511, and UPF 1402 in NRimplementations or an S-GW 1322 and P-GW 1323 in LTE implementations. Inthis example, upper layers 951 may be built on top of the SDAP 947, andmay include a user datagram protocol (UDP) and IP security layer(UDP/IP) 952, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocolfor the user plane layer (GTP-U) 953, and a User Plane PDU layer (UPPDU) 963.

The transport network layer 954 (also referred to as a “transportlayer”) may be built on IP transport, and the GTP-U 953 may be used ontop of the UDP/IP layer 952 (comprising a UDP layer and IP layer) tocarry user plane PDUs (UP-PDUs). The IP layer (also referred to as the“Internet layer”) may be used to perform packet addressing and routingfunctionality. The IP layer may assign IP addresses to user data packetsin any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPP formats, for example.

The GTP-U 953 may be used for carrying user data within the GPRS corenetwork and between the radio access network and the core network. Theuser data transported can be packets in any of IPv4, IPv6, or PPPformats, for example. The UDP/IP 952 may provide checksums for dataintegrity, port numbers for addressing different functions at the sourceand destination, and encryption and authentication on the selected dataflows. The RAN node 511 and the S-GW 1322 may utilize an S1-U interfaceto exchange user plane data via a protocol stack comprising an L1 layer(e.g., PHY 910), an L2 layer (e.g., MAC 920, RLC 930, PDCP 940, and/orSDAP 947), the UDP/IP layer 952, and the GTP-U 953. The S-GW 1322 andthe P-GW 1323 may utilize an S5/S8a interface to exchange user planedata via a protocol stack comprising an L1 layer, an L2 layer, theUDP/IP layer 952, and the GTP-U 953. As discussed previously, NASprotocols may support the mobility of the UE 501 and the sessionmanagement procedures to establish and maintain IP connectivity betweenthe UE 501 and the P-GW 1323.

Moreover, although not shown by FIG. 9, an application layer may bepresent above the AP 963 and/or the transport network layer 954. Theapplication layer may be a layer in which a user of the UE 501, RAN node511, or other network element interacts with software applications beingexecuted, for example, by application circuitry 605 or applicationcircuitry 705, respectively. The application layer may also provide oneor more interfaces for software applications to interact withcommunications systems of the UE 501 or RAN node 511, such as thebaseband circuitry 810. In some implementations the IP layer and/or theapplication layer may provide the same or similar functionality aslayers 5-7, or portions thereof, of the Open Systems Interconnection(OSI) model (e.g., OSI Layer 7—the application layer, OSI Layer 6—thepresentation layer, and OSI Layer 5—the session layer).

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating components, according to someexample embodiments, able to read instructions from a machine-readableor computer-readable medium (e.g., a non-transitory machine-readablestorage medium) and perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein. Specifically, FIG. 10 shows a diagrammaticrepresentation of hardware resources 1000 including one or moreprocessors (or processor cores) 1010, one or more memory/storage devices1020, and one or more communication resources 1030, each of which may becommunicatively coupled via a bus 1040. For embodiments where nodevirtualization (e.g., NFV) is utilized, a hypervisor 1002 may beexecuted to provide an execution environment for one or more networkslices/sub-slices to utilize the hardware resources 1000.

The processors 1010 may include, for example, a processor 1012 and aprocessor 1014. The processor(s) 1010 may be, for example, a centralprocessing unit (CPU), a reduced instruction set computing (RISC)processor, a complex instruction set computing (CISC) processor, agraphics processing unit (GPU), a DSP such as a baseband processor, anASIC, an FPGA, a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC), anotherprocessor (including those discussed herein), or any suitablecombination thereof.

The memory/storage devices 1020 may include main memory, disk storage,or any suitable combination thereof. The memory/storage devices 1020 mayinclude, but are not limited to, any type of volatile or nonvolatilememory such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM), static random accessmemory (SRAM), erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), Flashmemory, solid-state storage, etc.

The communication resources 1030 may include interconnection or networkinterface components or other suitable devices to communicate with oneor more peripheral devices 1004 or one or more databases 1006 via anetwork 1008. For example, the communication resources 1030 may includewired communication components (e.g., for coupling via USB), cellularcommunication components, NFC components, Bluetooth® (or Bluetooth® LowEnergy) components, Wi-Fi® components, and other communicationcomponents.

Instructions 1050 may comprise software, a program, an application, anapplet, an app, or other executable code for causing at least any of theprocessors 1010 to perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein. The instructions 1050 may reside, completely orpartially, within at least one of the processors 1010 (e.g., within theprocessor's cache memory), the memory/storage devices 1020, or anysuitable combination thereof. Furthermore, any portion of theinstructions 1050 may be transferred to the hardware resources 1000 fromany combination of the peripheral devices 1004 or the databases 1006.Accordingly, the memory of processors 1010, the memory/storage devices1020, the peripheral devices 1004, and the databases 1006 are examplesof computer-readable and machine-readable media.

For one or more embodiments, at least one of the components set forth inone or more of the preceding figures may be configured to perform one ormore operations, techniques, processes, and/or methods as set forth inthe example section below. For example, the baseband circuitry asdescribed above in connection with one or more of the preceding figuresmay be configured to operate in accordance with one or more of theexamples set forth below. For another example, circuitry associated witha UE, base station, network element, etc. as described above inconnection with one or more of the preceding figures may be configuredto operate in accordance with one or more of the examples set forthbelow in the example section.

Examples

Example 1 may include a method of sharing channel occupancy Time (COT)for a configured grant (CG) in an unlicensed operation of NR.

Example 2 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, where the COT is a UE-initiated COT shared with a gNB.

Example 3 may include the method of example 2 or some other exampleherein, providing, by a UE, an indication of a COT sharing boundary viaUCI using N bits.

Example 4 may include the method of example 3 or some other exampleherein, where the N bits initially indicate X slot offset from a currentslot to the COT sharing boundary.

Example 5 may include the method of example 4 or some other exampleherein, where the X slot offset is indicated in every subsequent slotuntil the COT sharing boundary is reached, by countdown method.

Example 6 may include the method of example 4 or some other exampleherein, where the COT sharing boundary is only indicated in one slot,and no COT sharing indication is signaled in any other slot.

Example 7 may include the method of example 3 or some other exampleherein, where N=1 and the offset X is configured via higher layers orDCI activation information.

Example 8 may include the method of example 2 or some other exampleherein, begin searching, by a UE, for a PDCCH after a COT sharingboundary arrives.

Example 9 may include the method of example 2 or some other exampleherein, where the UE-initiated COT includes multiple UL/DL switchingpoints.

Example 10 may include the method of example 9 or some other exampleherein, providing, by a UE, an indication of a UL/DL switching patternto the gNB.

Example 11 may include the method of example 10, where a duration ofindividual DL portions of the COT is of at least Y symbols long, and thegNB indicates to the UE via DCI the total duration of the DLtransmission.

Example 12 may include the method of example 2 or some other exampleherein, where the DL resources have a duration that is indicated by theUE, or configured for the UE in its CG information via RRC or DCIactivation.

Example 13 may include the method of example 2 or some other exampleherein, where multiple UEs multiplexed on the set of resources aresharing the COT with the gNB

Example 14 may include the method of example 13 or some other exampleherein, where the UEs independently indicate a COT sharing boundary.

Example 15 may include the method of example 14 or some other exampleherein, where the gNB acquires the COT after the latest occurring COTsharing boundary.

Example 16 may include the method of example 15 or some other exampleherein, where the UEs search the CSS for the DCI for containing theinformation related to the DL transmission.

Example 17 may include the method of example 16 or some other exampleherein, where the gNB selects the first common CORESET occasion amongstall of the multiplexed UEs to transmit the DCI to the UEs.

Example 18 may include the method of example 13 or some other exampleherein, where the multiplexed UEs are configured with a common CSS.

Example 19 may include the method of example 13 or some other exampleherein, where the UEs can be time or frequency multiplexed.

Example 20 may include the method of example 13 or some other exampleherein, where the multiple UEs each indicate a COT sharing DL durationto the gNB.

Example 21 may include the method of example 20 or some other exampleherein, where the multiple COT sharing DL durations do not completelyoverlap in time.

Example 22 may include the method of example 21 or some other exampleherein, where the gNB derives the DL time duration based on the multipledurations indicated by the UEs.

Example 23 may include the method of example 22 or some other exampleherein, where the gNB specifies a slot format for the entire DLduration, which can be done via SFI.

Example 24 may include the method of example 23 or some other exampleherein, where the gNB provides scheduling grants to UEs for GBtransmissions during time occasions indicated by U and/or F.

Example 25 may include the method of example 1 or some other exampleherein, where the COT is a gNB-initiated COT shared with CG UEs.

Example 26 may include the method of example 25 or some other exampleherein, where a CG UE is allowed to acquire the gNB-initiated COT duringtime occasions indicated by U and/or F by the gNB.

Example 27 may include the method of example 25 or some other exampleherein, where the gNB indicates in the DCI whether a CG UE is allowed toacquire the gNB-initiated COT

Example 28 may include the method of example 26 or some other exampleherein, where CG UEs transmissions must be contiguous in time withoutany gap.

Example 29 may include the method of example 26 or some other exampleherein, where CG transmissions are not allowed if the gNB does nottransmit any PDSCH during the COT.

Example 30 may include the method of example 26 or some other exampleherein, where the time resources available for UL transmission are allcounted towards the gNBs COT.

Example 31 may include the method of example 26 or some other example,where the CG UEs may acquire the COT using CAT-2 LBT for gaps smallerthan 25 us, and CAT-4 LBT otherwise, during time occasions indicated Fby gNB.

Example 32 may include the method of example 26 or some other exampleherein, where the CG transmission does not extend beyond the gNB's MCOTlength.

Example Z01 may include an apparatus comprising means to perform one ormore elements of a method described in or related to any of examples1-32, or any other method or process described herein.

Example Z02 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readablemedia comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, uponexecution of the instructions by one or more processors of theelectronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method describedin or related to any of examples 1-32, or any other method or processdescribed herein.

Example Z03 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, orcircuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in orrelated to any of examples 1-32, or any other method or processdescribed herein.

Example Z04 may include a method, technique, or process as described inor related to any of examples 1-32, or portions or parts thereof.

Example Z05 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processorsand one or more computer-readable media comprising instructions that,when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or moreprocessors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described inor related to any of examples 1-32, or portions thereof.

Example Z06 may include a signal as described in or related to any ofexamples 1-32, or portions or parts thereof.

Example Z07 may include a signal in a wireless network as shown anddescribed herein.

Example Z08 may include a method of communicating in a wireless networkas shown and described herein.

Example Z09 may include a system for providing wireless communication asshown and described herein.

Example Z10 may include a device for providing wireless communication asshown and described herein.

Any of the above-described examples may be combined with any otherexample (or combination of examples), unless explicitly statedotherwise. The foregoing description of one or more implementationsprovides illustration and description, but is not intended to beexhaustive or to limit the scope of embodiments to the precise formdisclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of theabove teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Abbreviations

For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviationsmay apply to the examples and embodiments discussed herein, but are notmeant to be limiting.

-   -   3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project    -   4G Fourth Generation    -   5G Fifth Generation    -   5GC 5G Core network    -   ACK Acknowledgement    -   AF Application Function    -   AM Acknowledged Mode    -   AMBR Aggregate Maximum Bit Rate    -   AMF Access and Mobility Management Function    -   AN Access Network    -   ANR Automatic Neighbour Relation    -   AP Application Protocol, Antenna Port, Access Point    -   API Application Programming Interface    -   APN Access Point Name    -   ARP Allocation and Retention Priority    -   ARQ Automatic Repeat Request    -   AS Access Stratum    -   ASN.1 Abstract Syntax Notation One    -   AUSF Authentication Server Function    -   AWGN Additive White Gaussian Noise    -   BCH Broadcast Channel    -   BER Bit Error Ratio    -   BFD Beam Failure Detection    -   BLER Block Error Rate    -   BPSK Binary Phase Shift Keying    -   BRAS Broadband Remote Access Server    -   BSS Business Support System    -   BS Base Station    -   BSR Buffer Status Report    -   BW Bandwidth    -   BWP Bandwidth Part    -   C-RNTI Cell Radio Network Temporary Identity    -   CA Carrier Aggregation, Certification Authority    -   CAPEX CAPital EXpenditure    -   CBRA Contention Based Random Access    -   CC Component Carrier, Country Code, Cryptographic Checksum    -   CCA Clear Channel Assessment    -   CCE Control Channel Element    -   CCCH Common Control Channel    -   CE Coverage Enhancement    -   CDM Content Delivery Network    -   CDMA Code-Division Multiple Access    -   CFRA Contention Free Random Access    -   CG Cell Group    -   CI Cell Identity    -   CID Cell-ID (e.g., positioning method)    -   CIM Common Information Model    -   CIR Carrier to Interference Ratio    -   CK Cipher Key    -   CM Connection Management, Conditional Mandatory    -   CMAS Commercial Mobile Alert Service    -   CMD Command    -   CMS Cloud Management System    -   CO Conditional Optional    -   CoMP Coordinated Multi-Point    -   CORESET Control Resource Set    -   COTS Commercial Off-The-Shelf    -   CP Control Plane, Cyclic Prefix, Connection Point    -   CPD Connection Point Descriptor    -   CPE Customer Premise Equipment    -   CPICH Common Pilot Channel    -   CQI Channel Quality Indicator    -   CPU CSI processing unit, Central Processing Unit    -   C/R Command/Response field bit    -   CRAN Cloud Radio Access Network, Cloud RAN    -   CRB Common Resource Block    -   CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check    -   CRI Channel-State Information Resource Indicator, CSI-RS        Resource Indicator    -   C-RNTI Cell RNTI    -   CS Circuit Switched    -   CSAR Cloud Service Archive    -   CSI Channel-State Information    -   CSI-IM CSI Interference Measurement    -   CSI-RS CSI Reference Signal    -   CSI-RSRP CSI reference signal received power    -   CSI-RSRQ CSI reference signal received quality    -   CSI-SINR CSI signal-to-noise and interference ratio    -   CSMA Carrier Sense Multiple Access    -   CSMA/CA CSMA with collision avoidance    -   CSS Common Search Space, Cell-specific Search Space    -   CTS Clear-to-Send    -   CW Codeword    -   CWS Contention Window Size    -   D2D Device-to-Device    -   DC Dual Connectivity, Direct Current    -   DCI Downlink Control Information    -   DF Deployment Flavour    -   DL Downlink    -   DMTF Distributed Management Task Force    -   DPDK Data Plane Development Kit    -   DM-RS, DMRS Demodulation Reference Signal    -   DN Data network    -   DRB Data Radio Bearer    -   DRS Discovery Reference Signal    -   DRX Discontinuous Reception    -   DSL Domain Specific Language. Digital Subscriber Line    -   DSLAM DSL Access Multiplexer    -   DwPTS Downlink Pilot Time Slot    -   E-LAN Ethernet Local Area Network    -   E2E End-to-End    -   ECCA extended clear channel assessment, extended CCA    -   ECCE Enhanced Control Channel Element, Enhanced CCE    -   ED Energy Detection    -   EDGE Enhanced Datarates for GSM Evolution (GSM Evolution)    -   EGMF Exposure Governance Management Function    -   EGPRS Enhanced GPRS    -   EIR Equipment Identity Register    -   eLAA enhanced Licensed Assisted Access, enhanced LAA    -   EM Element Manager    -   eMBB Enhanced Mobile Broadband    -   EMS Element Management System    -   eNB evolved NodeB, E-UTRAN Node B    -   EN-DC E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity    -   EPC Evolved Packet Core    -   EPDCCH enhanced PDCCH, enhanced Physical Downlink Control Cannel    -   EPRE Energy per resource element    -   EPS Evolved Packet System    -   EREG enhanced REG, enhanced resource element groups    -   ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute    -   ETWS Earthquake and Tsunami Warning System    -   eUICC embedded UICC, embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card    -   E-UTRA Evolved UTRA    -   E-UTRAN Evolved UTRAN    -   EV2X Enhanced V2X    -   F1AP F1 Application Protocol    -   F1-C F1 Control plane interface    -   F1-U F1 User plane interface    -   FACCH Fast Associated Control CHannel    -   FACCH/F Fast Associated Control Channel/Full rate    -   FACCH/H Fast Associated Control Channel/Half rate    -   FACH Forward Access Channel    -   FAUSCH Fast Uplink Signalling Channel    -   FB Functional Block    -   FBI Feedback Information    -   FCC Federal Communications Commission    -   FCCH Frequency Correction CHannel    -   FDD Frequency Division Duplex    -   FDM Frequency Division Multiplex    -   FDMA Frequency Division Multiple Access    -   FE Front End    -   FEC Forward Error Correction    -   FFS For Further Study    -   FFT Fast Fourier Transformation    -   feLAA further enhanced Licensed Assisted Access, further        enhanced LAA    -   FN Frame Number    -   FPGA Field-Programmable Gate Array    -   FR Frequency Range    -   G-RNTI GERAN Radio Network Temporary Identity    -   GERAN GSM EDGE RAN, GSM EDGE Radio Access Network    -   GGSN Gateway GPRS Support Node    -   GLONASS GLObal'naya NAvigatsionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (Engl.:        Global Navigation Satellite System)    -   gNB Next Generation NodeB    -   gNB-CU gNB-centralized unit, Next Generation NodeB centralized        unit    -   gNB-DU gNB-distributed unit, Next Generation NodeB distributed        unit    -   GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System    -   GPRS General Packet Radio Service    -   GSM Global System for Mobile Communications, Groupe Special        Mobile    -   GTP GPRS Tunneling Protocol    -   GTP-U GPRS Tunnelling Protocol for User Plane    -   GTS Go To Sleep Signal (related to WUS)    -   GUMMEI Globally Unique MME Identifier    -   GUTI Globally Unique Temporary UE Identity    -   HARQ Hybrid ARQ, Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request    -   HANDO, HO Handover    -   HFN HyperFrame Number    -   HHO Hard Handover    -   HLR Home Location Register    -   HN Home Network    -   HO Handover    -   HPLMN Home Public Land Mobile Network    -   HSDPA High Speed Downlink Packet Access    -   HSN Hopping Sequence Number    -   HSPA High Speed Packet Access    -   HSS Home Subscriber Server    -   HSUPA High Speed Uplink Packet Access    -   HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol    -   HTTPS Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (https is http/1.1        over SSL, i.e. port 443)    -   I-Block Information Block    -   ICCID Integrated Circuit Card Identification    -   ICIC Inter-Cell Interference Coordination    -   ID Identity, identifier    -   IDFT Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform    -   IE Information element    -   IBE In-Band Emission    -   IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers    -   IEI Information Element Identifier    -   IEIDL Information Element Identifier Data Length    -   IETF Internet Engineering Task Force    -   IF Infrastructure    -   IM Interference Measurement, Intermodulation, IP Multimedia    -   IMC IMS Credentials    -   IMEI International Mobile Equipment Identity    -   IMGI International mobile group identity    -   IMPI IP Multimedia Private Identity    -   IMPU IP Multimedia PUblic identity    -   IMS IP Multimedia Subsystem    -   IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity    -   IoT Internet of Things    -   IP Internet Protocol    -   Ipsec IP Security, Internet Protocol Security    -   IP-CAN IP-Connectivity Access Network    -   IP-M IP Multicast    -   IPv4 Internet Protocol Version 4    -   IPv6 Internet Protocol Version 6    -   IR Infrared    -   IS In Sync    -   IRP Integration Reference Point    -   ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network    -   ISIM IM Services Identity Module    -   ISO International Organisation for Standardisation    -   ISP Internet Service Provider    -   IWF Interworking-Function    -   I-WLAN Interworking WLAN    -   K Constraint length of the convolutional code, USIM Individual        key    -   kB Kilobyte (1000 bytes)    -   kbps kilo-bits per second    -   Kc Ciphering key    -   Ki Individual subscriber authentication key    -   KPI Key Performance Indicator    -   KQI Key Quality Indicator    -   KSI Key Set Identifier    -   ksps kilo-symbols per second    -   KVM Kernel Virtual Machine    -   L1 Layer 1 (physical layer)    -   L1-RSRP Layer 1 reference signal received power    -   L2 Layer 2 (data link layer)    -   L3 Layer 3 (network layer)    -   LAA Licensed Assisted Access    -   LAN Local Area Network    -   LBT Listen Before Talk    -   LCM LifeCycle Management    -   LCR Low Chip Rate    -   LCS Location Services    -   LCID Logical Channel ID    -   LI Layer Indicator    -   LLC Logical Link Control, Low Layer Compatibility    -   LPLMN Local PLMN    -   LPP LTE Positioning Protocol    -   LSB Least Significant Bit    -   LTE Long Term Evolution    -   LWA LTE-WLAN aggregation    -   LWIP LTE/WLAN Radio Level Integration with IPsec Tunnel    -   LTE Long Term Evolution    -   M2M Machine-to-Machine    -   MAC Medium Access Control (protocol layering context)    -   MAC Message authentication code (security/encryption context)    -   MAC-A MAC used for authentication and key agreement (TSG T WG3        context)    -   MAC-I MAC used for data integrity of signalling messages (TSG T        WG3 context)    -   MANO Management and Orchestration    -   MBMS Multimedia Broadcast and Multicast Service    -   MBSFN Multimedia Broadcast multicast service Single Frequency        Network    -   MCC Mobile Country Code    -   MCG Master Cell Group    -   MCOT Maximum Channel Occupancy Time    -   MCS Modulation and coding scheme    -   MDAF Management Data Analytics Function    -   MDAS Management Data Analytics Service    -   MDT Minimization of Drive Tests    -   ME Mobile Equipment    -   MeNB master eNB    -   MER Message Error Ratio    -   MGL Measurement Gap Length    -   MGRP Measurement Gap Repetition Period    -   MIB Master Information Block, Management Information Base    -   MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output    -   MLC Mobile Location Centre    -   MM Mobility Management    -   MME Mobility Management Entity    -   MN Master Node    -   MO Measurement Object, Mobile Originated    -   MPBCH MTC Physical Broadcast CHannel    -   MPDCCH MTC Physical Downlink Control CHannel    -   MPDSCH MTC Physical Downlink Shared CHannel    -   MPRACH MTC Physical Random Access CHannel    -   MPUSCH MTC Physical Uplink Shared Channel    -   MPLS MultiProtocol Label Switching    -   MS Mobile Station    -   MSB Most Significant Bit    -   MSC Mobile Switching Centre    -   MSI Minimum System Information, MCH Scheduling Information    -   MSID Mobile Station Identifier    -   MSIN Mobile Station Identification Number    -   MSISDN Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number    -   MT Mobile Terminated, Mobile Termination    -   MTC Machine-Type Communications    -   mMTC massive MTC, massive Machine-Type Communications    -   MU-MIMO Multi User MIMO    -   MWUS MTC wake-up signal, MTC WUS    -   NACK Negative Acknowledgement    -   NAI Network Access Identifier    -   NAS Non-Access Stratum, Non-Access Stratum layer    -   NCT Network Connectivity Topology    -   NEC Network Capability Exposure    -   NE-DC NR-E-UTRA Dual Connectivity    -   NEF Network Exposure Function    -   NF Network Function    -   NFP Network Forwarding Path    -   NFPD Network Forwarding Path Descriptor    -   NFV Network Functions Virtualization    -   NFVI NFV Infrastructure    -   NFVO NFV Orchestrator    -   NG Next Generation, Next Gen    -   NGEN-DC NG-RAN E-UTRA-NR Dual Connectivity    -   NM Network Manager    -   NMS Network Management System    -   N-PoP Network Point of Presence    -   NMIB, N-MIB Narrowband MIB    -   NPBCH Narrowband Physical Broadcast CHannel    -   NPDCCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Control CHannel    -   NPDSCH Narrowband Physical Downlink Shared CHannel    -   NPRACH Narrowband Physical Random Access CHannel    -   NPUSCH Narrowband Physical Uplink Shared CHannel    -   NPSS Narrowband Primary Synchronization Signal    -   NSSS Narrowband Secondary Synchronization Signal    -   NR New Radio, Neighbour Relation    -   NRF NF Repository Function    -   NRS Narrowband Reference Signal    -   NS Network Service    -   NSA Non-Standalone operation mode    -   NSD Network Service Descriptor    -   NSR Network Service Record    -   NSSAI ‘Network Slice Selection Assistance Information    -   S-NNSAI Single-NSSAI    -   NSSF Network Slice Selection Function    -   NW Network    -   NWUS Narrowband wake-up signal, Narrowband WUS    -   NZP Non-Zero Power    -   O&M Operation and Maintenance    -   ODU2 Optical channel Data Unit—type 2    -   OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing    -   OFDMA Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access    -   OOB Out-of-band    -   OOS Out of Sync    -   OPEX OPerating EXpense    -   OSI Other System Information    -   OSS Operations Support System    -   OTA over-the-air    -   PAPR Peak-to-Average Power Ratio    -   PAR Peak to Average Ratio    -   PBCH Physical Broadcast Channel    -   PC Power Control, Personal Computer    -   PCC Primary Component Carrier, Primary CC    -   PCell Primary Cell    -   PCI Physical Cell ID, Physical Cell Identity    -   PCEF Policy and Charging Enforcement Function    -   PCF Policy Control Function    -   PCRF Policy Control and Charging Rules Function    -   PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol, Packet Data Convergence        Protocol layer    -   PDCCH Physical Downlink Control Channel    -   PDCP Packet Data Convergence Protocol    -   PDN Packet Data Network, Public Data Network    -   PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared Channel    -   PDU Protocol Data Unit    -   PEI Permanent Equipment Identifiers    -   PFD Packet Flow Description    -   P-GW PDN Gateway    -   PHICH Physical hybrid-ARQ indicator channel    -   PHY Physical layer    -   PLMN Public Land Mobile Network    -   PIN Personal Identification Number    -   PM Performance Measurement    -   PMI Precoding Matrix Indicator    -   PNF Physical Network Function    -   PNFD Physical Network Function Descriptor    -   PNFR Physical Network Function Record    -   POC PTT over Cellular    -   PP, PTP Point-to-Point    -   PPP Point-to-Point Protocol    -   PRACH Physical RACH    -   PRB Physical resource block    -   PRG Physical resource block group    -   ProSe Proximity Services, Proximity-Based Service    -   PRS Positioning Reference Signal    -   PRR Packet Reception Radio    -   PS Packet Services    -   PSBCH Physical Sidelink Broadcast Channel    -   PSDCH Physical Sidelink Downlink Channel    -   PSCCH Physical Sidelink Control Channel    -   PSSCH Physical Sidelink Shared Channel    -   PSCell Primary SCell    -   PSS Primary Synchronization Signal    -   PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network    -   PT-RS Phase-tracking reference signal    -   PTT Push-to-Talk    -   PUCCH Physical Uplink Control Channel    -   PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel    -   QAM Quadrature Amplitude Modulation    -   QCI QoS class of identifier    -   QCL Quasi co-location    -   QFI QoS Flow ID, QoS Flow Identifier    -   QoS Quality of Service    -   QPSK Quadrature (Quaternary) Phase Shift Keying    -   QZSS Quasi-Zenith Satellite System    -   RA-RNTI Random Access RNTI    -   RAB Radio Access Bearer, Random Access Burst    -   RACH Random Access Channel    -   RADIUS Remote Authentication Dial In User Service    -   RAN Radio Access Network    -   RAND RANDom number (used for authentication)    -   RAR Random Access Response    -   RAT Radio Access Technology    -   RAU Routing Area Update    -   RB Resource block, Radio Bearer    -   RBG Resource block group    -   REG Resource Element Group    -   Rel Release    -   REQ REQuest    -   RF Radio Frequency    -   RI Rank Indicator    -   RIV Resource indicator value    -   RL Radio Link    -   RLC Radio Link Control, Radio Link Control layer    -   RLC AM RLC Acknowledged Mode    -   RLC UM RLC Unacknowledged Mode    -   RLF Radio Link Failure    -   RLM Radio Link Monitoring    -   RLM-RS Reference Signal for RLM    -   RM Registration Management    -   RMC Reference Measurement Channel    -   RMSI Remaining MSI, Remaining Minimum System Information    -   RN Relay Node    -   RNC Radio Network Controller    -   RNL Radio Network Layer    -   RNTI Radio Network Temporary Identifier    -   ROHC RObust Header Compression    -   RRC Radio Resource Control, Radio Resource Control layer    -   RRM Radio Resource Management    -   RS Reference Signal    -   RSRP Reference Signal Received Power    -   RSRQ Reference Signal Received Quality    -   RSSI Received Signal Strength Indicator    -   RSU Road Side Unit    -   RSTD Reference Signal Time difference    -   RTP Real Time Protocol    -   RTS Ready-To-Send    -   RTT Round Trip Time    -   Rx Reception, Receiving, Receiver    -   S1AP S1 Application Protocol    -   S1-MME S1 for the control plane    -   S1-U S1 for the user plane    -   S-GW Serving Gateway    -   S-RNTI SRNC Radio Network Temporary Identity    -   S-TMSI SAE Temporary Mobile Station Identifier    -   SA Standalone operation mode    -   SAE System Architecture Evolution    -   SAP Service Access Point    -   SAPD Service Access Point Descriptor    -   SAPI Service Access Point Identifier    -   SCC Secondary Component Carrier, Secondary CC    -   SCell Secondary Cell    -   SC-FDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access    -   SCG Secondary Cell Group    -   SCM Security Context Management    -   SCS Subcarrier Spacing    -   SCTP Stream Control Transmission Protocol    -   SDAP Service Data Adaptation Protocol, Service Data Adaptation        Protocol layer    -   SDL Supplementary Downlink    -   SDNF Structured Data Storage Network Function    -   SDP Session Description Protocol    -   SDSF Structured Data Storage Function    -   SDU Service Data Unit    -   SEAF Security Anchor Function    -   SeNB secondary eNB    -   SEPP Security Edge Protection Proxy    -   SFI Slot format indication    -   SFTD Space-Frequency Time Diversity, SFN and frame timing        difference    -   SFN System Frame Number    -   SgNB Secondary gNB    -   SGSN Serving GPRS Support Node    -   S-GW Serving Gateway    -   SI System Information    -   SI-RNTI System Information RNTI    -   SIB System Information Block    -   SIM Subscriber Identity Module    -   SIP Session Initiated Protocol    -   SiP System in Package    -   SL Sidelink    -   SLA Service Level Agreement    -   SM Session Management    -   SMF Session Management Function    -   SMS Short Message Service    -   SMSF SMS Function    -   SMTC SSB-based Measurement Timing Configuration    -   SN Secondary Node, Sequence Number    -   SoC System on Chip    -   SON Self-Organizing Network    -   SpCell Special Cell    -   SP-CSI-RNTI Semi-Persistent CSI RNTI    -   SPS Semi-Persistent Scheduling    -   SQN Sequence number    -   SR Scheduling Request    -   SRB Signalling Radio Bearer    -   SRS Sounding Reference Signal    -   SS Synchronization Signal    -   SSB Synchronization Signal Block, SS/PBCH Block    -   SSBRI SS/PBCH Block Resource Indicator, Synchronization Signal        Block Resource Indicator    -   SSC Session and Service Continuity    -   SS-RSRP Synchronization Signal based Reference Signal Received        Power    -   SS-RSRQ Synchronization Signal based Reference Signal Received        Quality    -   SS-SINR Synchronization Signal based Signal to Noise and        Interference Ratio    -   SSS Secondary Synchronization Signal    -   SSSG Search Space Set Group    -   SSSIF Search Space Set Indicator    -   SST Slice/Service Types    -   SU-MIMO Single User MIMO    -   SUL Supplementary Uplink    -   TA Timing Advance, Tracking Area    -   TAC Tracking Area Code    -   TAG Timing Advance Group    -   TAU Tracking Area Update    -   TB Transport Block    -   TBS Transport Block Size    -   TBD To Be Defined    -   TCI Transmission Configuration Indicator    -   TCP Transmission Communication Protocol    -   TDD Time Division Duplex    -   TDM Time Division Multiplexing    -   TDMA Time Division Multiple Access    -   TE Terminal Equipment    -   TEID Tunnel End Point Identifier    -   TFT Traffic Flow Template    -   TMSI Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity    -   TNL Transport Network Layer    -   TPC Transmit Power Control    -   TPMI Transmitted Precoding Matrix Indicator    -   TR Technical Report    -   TRP, TRxP Transmission Reception Point    -   TRS Tracking Reference Signal    -   TRx Transceiver    -   TS Technical Specifications, Technical Standard    -   TTI Transmission Time Interval    -   Tx Transmission, Transmitting, Transmitter    -   U-RNTI UTRAN Radio Network Temporary Identity    -   UART Universal Asynchronous Receiver and Transmitter    -   UCI Uplink Control Information    -   UE User Equipment    -   UDM Unified Data Management    -   UDP User Datagram Protocol    -   UDSF Unstructured Data Storage Network Function    -   UICC Universal Integrated Circuit Card    -   UL Uplink    -   UM Unacknowledged Mode    -   UML Unified Modelling Language    -   UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System    -   UP User Plane    -   UPF User Plane Function    -   URI Uniform Resource Identifier    -   URL Uniform Resource Locator    -   URLLC Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency    -   USB Universal Serial Bus    -   USIM Universal Subscriber Identity Module    -   USS UE-specific search space    -   UTRA UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access    -   UTRAN Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network    -   UwPTS Uplink Pilot Time Slot    -   V2I Vehicle-to-Infrastruction    -   V2P Vehicle-to-Pedestrian    -   V2V Vehicle-to-Vehicle    -   V2X Vehicle-to-everything    -   VIM Virtualized Infrastructure Manager    -   VL Virtual Link,    -   VLAN Virtual LAN, Virtual Local Area Network    -   VM Virtual Machine    -   VNF Virtualized Network Function    -   VNFFG VNF Forwarding Graph    -   VNFFGD VNF Forwarding Graph Descriptor    -   VNFM VNF Manager    -   VoIP Voice-over-IP, Voice-over-Internet Protocol    -   VPLMN Visited Public Land Mobile Network    -   VPN Virtual Private Network    -   VRB Virtual Resource Block    -   WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access    -   WLAN Wireless Local Area Network    -   WMAN Wireless Metropolitan Area Network    -   WPAN Wireless Personal Area Network    -   X2-C X2-Control plane    -   X2-U X2-User plane    -   XML eXtensible Markup Language    -   XRES EXpected user RESponse    -   XOR eXclusive OR    -   ZC Zadoff-Chu    -   ZP Zero Power

Terminology

For the purposes of the present document, the following terms anddefinitions are applicable to the examples and embodiments discussedherein, but are not meant to be limiting.

The term “circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, or includeshardware components such as an electronic circuit, a logic circuit, aprocessor (shared, dedicated, or group) and/or memory (shared,dedicated, or group), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC),a field-programmable device (FPD) (e.g., a field-programmable gate array(FPGA), a programmable logic device (PLD), a complex PLD (CPLD), ahigh-capacity PLD (HCPLD), a structured ASIC, or a programmable SoC),digital signal processors (DSPs), etc., that are configured to providethe described functionality. In some embodiments, the circuitry mayexecute one or more software or firmware programs to provide at leastsome of the described functionality. The term “circuitry” may also referto a combination of one or more hardware elements (or a combination ofcircuits used in an electrical or electronic system) with the programcode used to carry out the functionality of that program code. In theseembodiments, the combination of hardware elements and program code maybe referred to as a particular type of circuitry.

The term “processor circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, orincludes circuitry capable of sequentially and automatically carryingout a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations, or recording,storing, and/or transferring digital data. The term “processorcircuitry” may refer to one or more application processors, one or morebaseband processors, a physical central processing unit (CPU), asingle-core processor, a dual-core processor, a triple-core processor, aquad-core processor, and/or any other device capable of executing orotherwise operating computer-executable instructions, such as programcode, software modules, and/or functional processes. The terms“application circuitry” and/or “baseband circuitry” may be consideredsynonymous to, and may be referred to as, “processor circuitry.”

The term “interface circuitry” as used herein refers to, is part of, orincludes circuitry that enables the exchange of information between twoor more components or devices. The term “interface circuitry” may referto one or more hardware interfaces, for example, buses, I/O interfaces,peripheral component interfaces, network interface cards, and/or thelike.

The term “user equipment” or “UE” as used herein refers to a device withradio communication capabilities and may describe a remote user ofnetwork resources in a communications network. The term “user equipment”or “UE” may be considered synonymous to, and may be referred to as,client, mobile, mobile device, mobile terminal, user terminal, mobileunit, mobile station, mobile user, subscriber, user, remote station,access agent, user agent, receiver, radio equipment, reconfigurableradio equipment, reconfigurable mobile device, etc. Furthermore, theterm “user equipment” or “UE” may include any type of wireless/wireddevice or any computing device including a wireless communicationsinterface.

The term “network element” as used herein refers to physical orvirtualized equipment and/or infrastructure used to provide wired orwireless communication network services. The term “network element” maybe considered synonymous to and/or referred to as a networked computer,networking hardware, network equipment, network node, router, switch,hub, bridge, radio network controller, RAN device, RAN node, gateway,server, virtualized VNF, NFVI, and/or the like.

The term “computer system” as used herein refers to any typeinterconnected electronic devices, computer devices, or componentsthereof. Additionally, the term “computer system” and/or “system” mayrefer to various components of a computer that are communicativelycoupled with one another. Furthermore, the term “computer system” and/or“system” may refer to multiple computer devices and/or multiplecomputing systems that are communicatively coupled with one another andconfigured to share computing and/or networking resources.

The term “appliance,” “computer appliance,” or the like, as used hereinrefers to a computer device or computer system with program code (e.g.,software or firmware) that is specifically designed to provide aspecific computing resource. A “virtual appliance” is a virtual machineimage to be implemented by a hypervisor-equipped device that virtualizesor emulates a computer appliance or otherwise is dedicated to provide aspecific computing resource.

The term “resource” as used herein refers to a physical or virtualdevice, a physical or virtual component within a computing environment,and/or a physical or virtual component within a particular device, suchas computer devices, mechanical devices, memory space, processor/CPUtime, processor/CPU usage, processor and accelerator loads, hardwaretime or usage, electrical power, input/output operations, ports ornetwork sockets, channel/link allocation, throughput, memory usage,storage, network, database and applications, workload units, and/or thelike. A “hardware resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/ornetwork resources provided by physical hardware element(s). A“virtualized resource” may refer to compute, storage, and/or networkresources provided by virtualization infrastructure to an application,device, system, etc. The term “network resource” or “communicationresource” may refer to resources that are accessible by computerdevices/systems via a communications network. The term “systemresources” may refer to any kind of shared entities to provide services,and may include computing and/or network resources. System resources maybe considered as a set of coherent functions, network data objects orservices, accessible through a server where such system resources resideon a single host or multiple hosts and are clearly identifiable.

The term “channel” as used herein refers to any transmission medium,either tangible or intangible, which is used to communicate data or adata stream. The term “channel” may be synonymous with and/or equivalentto “communications channel,” “data communications channel,”“transmission channel,” “data transmission channel,” “access channel,”“data access channel,” “link,” “data link,” “carrier,” “radiofrequencycarrier,” and/or any other like term denoting a pathway or mediumthrough which data is communicated. Additionally, the term “link” asused herein refers to a connection between two devices through a RAT forthe purpose of transmitting and receiving information.

The terms “instantiate,” “instantiation,” and the like as used hereinrefers to the creation of an instance. An “instance” also refers to aconcrete occurrence of an object, which may occur, for example, duringexecution of program code.

The terms “coupled,” “communicatively coupled,” along with derivativesthereof are used herein. The term “coupled” may mean two or moreelements are in direct physical or electrical contact with one another,may mean that two or more elements indirectly contact each other butstill cooperate or interact with each other, and/or may mean that one ormore other elements are coupled or connected between the elements thatare said to be coupled with each other. The term “directly coupled” maymean that two or more elements are in direct contact with one another.The term “communicatively coupled” may mean that two or more elementsmay be in contact with one another by a means of communication includingthrough a wire or other interconnect connection, through a wirelesscommunication channel or ink, and/or the like.

The term “information element” refers to a structural element containingone or more fields. The term “field” refers to individual contents of aninformation element, or a data element that contains content.

The term “SMTC” refers to an SSB-based measurement timing configurationconfigured by SSB-MeasurementTimingConfiguration.

The term “SSB” refers to an SS/PBCH block.

The term “a “Primary Cell” refers to the MCG cell, operating on theprimary frequency, in which the UE either performs the initialconnection establishment procedure or initiates the connectionre-establishment procedure.

The term “Primary SCG Cell” refers to the SCG cell in which the UEperforms random access when performing the Reconfiguration with Syncprocedure for DC operation.

The term “Secondary Cell” refers to a cell providing additional radioresources on top of a Special Cell for a UE configured with CA.

The term “Secondary Cell Group” refers to the subset of serving cellscomprising the PSCell and zero or more secondary cells for a UEconfigured with DC.

The term “Serving Cell” refers to the primary cell for a UE inRRC_CONNECTED not configured with CA/DC there is only one serving cellcomprising of the primary cell.

The term “serving cell” or “serving cells” refers to the set of cellscomprising the Special Cell(s) and all secondary cells for a UE inRRC_CONNECTED configured with CA.

The term “Special Cell” refers to the PCell of the MCG or the PSCell ofthe SCG for DC operation; otherwise, the term “Special Cell” refers tothe Pcell.

As described above, aspects of the present technology may include thegathering and use of data available from various sources, e.g., toimprove or enhance functionality. The present disclosure contemplatesthat in some instances, this gathered data may include personalinformation data that uniquely identifies or can be used to contact orlocate a specific person. Such personal information data can includedemographic data, location-based data, telephone numbers, emailaddresses, Twitter ID's, home addresses, data or records relating to auser's health or level of fitness (e.g., vital signs measurements,medication information, exercise information), date of birth, or anyother identifying or personal information. The present disclosurerecognizes that the use of such personal information data, in thepresent technology, may be used to the benefit of users.

The present disclosure contemplates that the entities responsible forthe collection, analysis, disclosure, transfer, storage, or other use ofsuch personal information data will comply with well-established privacypolicies and/or privacy practices. In particular, such entities shouldimplement and consistently use privacy policies and practices that aregenerally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmentalrequirements for maintaining personal information data private andsecure. Such policies should be easily accessible by users, and shouldbe updated as the collection and/or use of data changes. Personalinformation from users should be collected for legitimate and reasonableuses of the entity and not shared or sold outside of those legitimateuses. Further, such collection/sharing should only occur after receivingthe informed consent of the users. Additionally, such entities shouldconsider taking any needed steps for safeguarding and securing access tosuch personal information data and ensuring that others with access tothe personal information data adhere to their privacy policies andprocedures. Further, such entities can subject themselves to evaluationby third parties to certify their adherence to widely accepted privacypolicies and practices. In addition, policies and practices should beadapted for the particular types of personal information data beingcollected and/or accessed and adapted to applicable laws and standards,including jurisdiction-specific considerations. For instance, in the US,collection of, or access to, certain health data may be governed byfederal and/or state laws, such as the Health Insurance Portability andAccountability Act (HIPAA); whereas health data in other countries maybe subject to other regulations and policies and should be handledaccordingly. Hence different privacy practices should be maintained fordifferent personal data types in each country.

Despite the foregoing, the present disclosure also contemplatesembodiments in which users selectively block the use of, or access to,personal information data. That is, the present disclosure contemplatesthat hardware and/or software elements can be provided to prevent orblock access to such personal information data. For example, the presenttechnology may be configurable to allow users to selectively “opt in” or“opt out” of participation in the collection of personal informationdata, e.g., during registration for services or anytime thereafter. Inaddition to providing “opt in” and “opt out” options, the presentdisclosure contemplates providing notifications relating to the accessor use of personal information. For instance, a user may be notifiedupon downloading an app that their personal information data will beaccessed and then reminded again just before personal information datais accessed by the app.

Moreover, it is the intent of the present disclosure that personalinformation data should be managed and handled in a way to minimizerisks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use. Risk can beminimized by limiting the collection of data and deleting data once itis no longer needed. In addition, and when applicable, including incertain health related applications, data de-identification can be usedto protect a user's privacy. De-identification may be facilitated, whenappropriate, by removing specific identifiers (e.g., date of birth,etc.), controlling the amount or specificity of data stored (e.g.,collecting location data a city level rather than at an address level),controlling how data is stored (e.g., aggregating data across users),and/or other methods.

Therefore, although the present disclosure may broadly cover use ofpersonal information data to implement one or more various disclosedembodiments, the present disclosure also contemplates that the variousembodiments can also be implemented without the need for accessing suchpersonal information data. That is, the various embodiments of thepresent technology are not rendered inoperable due to the lack of all ora portion of such personal information data.

1. A user equipment (UE), comprising: radio front end circuitry; andprocessor circuitry coupled to the radio front end circuitry andconfigured to: contend for access to a channel in an unlicensedspectrum; acquire a shared channel occupancy time (COT); transmit, usingthe radio front end circuitry, data in the shared COT; and transmit,using the radio front end circuitry, an indication of a COT sharingboundary.
 2. The UE of claim 1, wherein the shared COT comprisesmultiple uplink (UL) downlink (DL) switching points, the processorcircuitry is further configured to: transmit, using the radio front endcircuitry: an allowed length of a portion of the shared COT that a basestation (BS) can utilize, or an indication of an UL/DL switchingpattern.
 3. The UE of claim 2, wherein the processor circuitry isfurther configured to: receive, using the radio front end circuitry, alength of a transmission within the allowed length; determine that a gapbetween the allowed length and the length of the transmission is lessthan threshold; and transmit, using the radio front end circuitry,additional data in the shared COT, without performing a listen beforetalk (LBT).
 4. The UE of claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry isfurther configured to: receive, using the radio front end circuitry,configuration information comprising: a maximum number of UL-DL andDL-UL switching points, or a duration allowed for a downlinktransmission in the shared COT.
 5. The UE of claim 4, wherein theconfiguration information is received in a radio resource configuration(RRC) signal or a downlink control information (DCI) signal.
 6. The UEof claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is configured to: aftertransmitting the data, monitor the channel for a downlink controlinformation (DCI) signal; and receive the DCI signal comprising a firstset of Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) occasions of a commonsearch space (CSS), wherein the CSS informs two or more UEs includingthe UE that acquired the shared COT in the channel, of a structure ofdownlink (DL) transmissions.
 7. The UE of claim 6, wherein the structureof DL transmissions comprise a slot format of base station (BS)transmissions on the shared COT.
 8. The UE of claim 6, wherein the DCIsignal further comprises a slot pattern for downlink (DL) and uplink(UL) transmissions based on the indication of the COT sharing boundaryand a second indication of a COT sharing boundary of a second UE of thetwo or more UEs.
 9. The UE of claim 6, wherein the DCI signal comprisesslot format information (SFI).
 10. The UE of claim 1, wherein theindication comprises N bits, and wherein the transmission comprises anuplink control information (UCI) signal.
 11. The UE of claim 1, whereinthe N bits identify a slot offset, X, from an initial slot to the COTsharing boundary.
 12. The UE of claim 11, wherein the processorcircuitry is further configured to: transmit, using the radio front endcircuitry, the slot offset, X, in each subsequent slot by a countdownuntil the COT sharing boundary is reached.
 13. The UE of claim 1,wherein the processor circuitry is further configured to: transmit,using the radio front end circuitry, a start and length indicator value(SLIV) of the final slot via the UCI signal.
 14. A base station (BS),comprising: radio front end circuitry; and processor circuitry coupledto the radio front end circuitry and configured to: receive, using theradio front end circuitry, an indication of a channel occupancy time(COT) sharing boundary from a first user equipment (UE); perform alisten before talk (LBT) after the COT sharing boundary; and based atleast on the LBT, transmit, using the radio front end circuitry, data inthe shared COT, wherein the shared COT occurs in a channel in anunlicensed spectrum.
 15. The BS of claim 14, wherein the processorcircuitry is configured to: receive, using the radio front endcircuitry, a second indication of a second COT sharing boundary from asecond UE in the channel; determine a slot pattern for downlink (DL) anduplink (UL) transmissions based on the first and second indications; andtransmit a first set of Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)occasions of a common search space (CSS), wherein the CSS informs thefirst and second UEs that share the shared COT of the slot pattern via adownlink control information (DCI) signal.
 16. The BS of claim 15,wherein the shared COT comprises multiple uplink (UL) downlink (DL)switching points, the processor circuitry is further configured to:receive, using the radio front end circuitry: a first slot pattern fromthe first UE and a second slot pattern from the second UE, wherein thefirst and second slot patterns are different; and transmit, using theradio front end circuitry, the data in the shared COT based on the firstslot pattern.
 17. The BS of claim 14, wherein the shared COT comprisesmultiple uplink (UL) downlink (DL) switching points, the processorcircuitry is further configured to: receive, using the radio front endcircuitry: an allowed length of a portion of the shared COT that the BScan utilize.
 18. A method, comprising: contending, by a user equipment(UE), for access to a channel in an unlicensed spectrum; acquiring, bythe UE, a shared channel occupancy time (COT); transmitting, by the UE,an indication of a COT sharing boundary; transmitting, by the UE, datavia the shared COT; and after transmitting the data, monitoring by theUE, the channel for a downlink control information (DCI) signal.
 19. Themethod of claim 18, further comprising: receiving the DCI signalcomprising a first set of Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH)occasions of a common search space (CSS), wherein the CSS informs two ormore UEs including the UE sharing the shared COT, of a structure ofdownlink (DL) transmissions.
 20. The method of claim 19, wherein the DCIsignal further comprises a slot pattern for downlink (DL) and uplink(UL) transmissions based on the indication of the COT sharing boundaryand a second indication of a COT sharing boundary of a second UE of thetwo or more UEs.